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RUSSIA 



THE EASTERN QUESTION 



BY 



RICHARD COBDEN, ESQ., M.P. 



AN INTRODUCTION 



AN AMERICAN CITIZEN. 



BOSTON: 

PUBLISHED BY JOHN P. JEWETT & COMPANY. 

CLEVELAND, OHIO: 

JEWETT, PROCTOR AND WORTHINGTON. 

1854. 



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CONTENTS. 



I. RUSSIA, TURKEY, AND ENGLAND, 9 

II. POLAND, RUSSIA, AND ENGLAND, 47 

III. THE BALANCE OF POWER 74 

IV. PROTECTION OF COMMERCE, % 

137 
APPENDIX, 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by 

JOHN P. JEWETT & CO., 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



STEREOTYPED ET HOBAKT AND BOBBINS, BOSTON. 



/ 



INTRODUCTION 



Richajrd Cobden, Esq., of England, is a name extensively and 
i'avorat'y known. It would be difficult to find the man of the 
present of more good, practical common-sense. In the lan- 
guage of a personal friend, he is " England's prime-minister of 
common-sense." His name alone is sufficient guarantee for the 
extensive perusal of any production of his pen. The following 
work on Russia was written by him, and first published in a 
pamphlet form in Edinburgh, London, Manchester and Dublin, in 
1836; but its principles and facts have not become essentially 
changed since that time. They are such as the lapse of time 
cannot materially affect. And it is believed that the present 
position of the "Eastern Question," will invest it with fresh 
interest, and render its reprint at the present time peculiarly 
seasonable. Few men in our country are better acquainted with 
European affairs than Rev. Dr. Baird, of New-York, and Foreign 
Secretary of the " American, and Soreign Christian Union." He 
was familiar and favorably impressed with this work of Mr. Cob- 
den when it was first published in England, and he now says that 
" he thinks its republication in this country, and at this moment, 
would be eminently opportune." For these reasons, it is thought 
expedient to recommend the work of Mr. Cobden, with a few 
preliminary observations touching the Eastern Question, to the 
American public. 

Russia is, territorially, the largest civil division of the globe. 



4 INTRODUCTION. 

Its total superficial area is estimated at eight millions of square 
miles, being more than twice the area of the whole of the United 
States, and comprising all the north of Europe and Asia, and the 
north-west corner of North America. This immense territory has 
given to the Russian empire an importance more imaginary than 
real. For, as with individuals, so with nations, — nothing, to the 
cursory observer, invests them so much with the appearance of 
strength as large landed possessions. According to this idea, 
however, the aborigines of this western world were a very power- 
ful people, for the whole boundless continent was theirs ; and, 
though divided into a great variety of tribes, they were linked 
together by interests that made them the common foe of the white 
man. Nevertheless, they melted away, at his approach, like the 
snows of winter before the summer's sun. Something, therefore, 
beside land, is requisite to national strength. 

The original elements, also, of the Rusian nation, have doubtless 
contributed to the prevalent exaggerated idea of its power. The 
Sclavonic, Finnish and Lettish tribes on the northern, and the 
Goths and Vandals on the southern borders of the Baltic, and 
stretching across to the Black Sea, together with the Huns around 
the Caspian, possessed great physical energy, common to rude 
habits of life and northern latitudes ; and their incursions upon 
their neighbors, and their overthrow of the empires both of Rome 
and Constantinople, fifteen hundred years ago, struck terror 
through all the more effeminate nations in the south of Europe. 
These facts appear to have given rise to that mythological charac- 
ter, the Great Northern Bear, whose reputation is so well known, 
and has, for ages, found so fit a personification in the Autocrat, 
whose power has extended over and absorbed all those barbarian 
hordes. And these facts, in connection with the more recent 
prowess and native energy of Peter the Great, and the providen- 
tial defeat of Napoleon at Moscow, by the snows and frosts 
rather than the arms of Russia, have contributed to foster the 
notion of its invincibleness, and well-nigh made the world, civilized 
as well as uncivilized, stand in awe. 

Again, the absolute despotism of the Russian government has 
conveyed to the world a factitious idea of its comparative power. 



INTRODUCTION. O 

Despotism, in its very nature, is abhorrent to all enlightened and 
liberal minds. But, in the case of Russia, it has been rendered 
more so, and, consequently, become a greater object of dread, by 
its connection with extensive dominion ; by its barbarian con- 
quests of former ages as seen in the dim light of the past ; by its 
more modern and equally tyrannical edicts and atrocious deeds ; 
and, more than all the rest, by the opposite and increasing repub- 
lican tendencies of the present age, in Europe as well as in our 
own country. But despotism, even severely executed upon its 
subjects and weak neighbors, is no criterion of power, in comparison 
of other and more enlightened governments. Despotism at home 
is not identical with power abroad. 

And, now, if there are circumstances that go to diminish the 
popular dread of Russian power, there are such as tend to miti- 
gate, if they do not excuse, Russian intolerance. At least, there 
are reasons why other governments should be slow in its con- 
demnation, and why, in comparison of other nations, Russia has 
a just claim upon our charity. Deeds, events, as well as objects, 
wear different aspects as seen from different stand-points. There 
are few questions that have not two sides, and it is not always 
easy to get at both correctly, when we are so remote in time and 
space as we are from most of those that have arrested the public 
attention with regard to Russia. We cannot apologize for des- 
potism. There can be no more excuse for nations than individuals 
in the commission of moral wrong. Neither can the conduct of 
the one nor the other be justified upon the principle that the end 
sanctifies the means. We eschew it, by whomsoever advocated, 
and wheresoever applied. The mantle of American republicanism 
can hide its naked deformity no more effectually than Russian 
despotism, which has justly merited the rebuke of the ciliviled 
world. But it should be remembered that practical liberty is 
sometimes found in strange juxtaposition with organized despot- 
ism, and practical despotism in a similar relation to professed 
liberty. As a matter of fact, no human government exists that 
does not present the aspect of the most unnatural admixture of 
these opposing elements. All, more or less, violate their own 
principles, — some for the better, others for the worse. Hence, 
1* 



6 INTRODUCTION. 

our own boasted republic is not so free from reproach as to render 
it entirely unbecoming in it to speak with some moderation, and 
a degree of charity even, of Russian rule. There is too much 
glass in our house to allow of casting stones at others with 
safety. For, if we compare the system of Russian serfdom with 
that of American slavery, the balance is certainly against us; 
and it is very much of a question, whether the future historian 
will be able to discover any essential difference, unless it be in 
favor of Russia, between the partitionings of Poland and Mexico. 
Do Americans find an apology for the annexation of a large portion 
of Mexico to the United States in the prospective improvement 
in the condition of its inhabitants ? Let them be generous enough 
to excuse Russia on the same ground, since the social and civil 
condition of the masses of Poland has been confessedly much im- 
proved since its dismemberment, and Russia has received its share 
of the plunder. If the prospect of good is a sanction for doing 
evil, certainly its realization is a sufiicient apology. If it is 
right to do evil that good may come, we may well rest satisfied 
after the evil is done, since good has come. But the prospective 
or the actual results are no excuse in either case ; only, similar 
indefensible aggressions of different nations upon their weak 
neighbors call for mutual forbearance and charity. Or, what is 
no less desirable is, that similar errors among the nations should 
beget patience under the reproof of their mutual bad example, 
and teach them to correct in themselves the faults that they see 
mirrored forth in each other's character. Surely a faithful, recip- 
rocal application of this principle between Russia and the United 
States would be greatly to the advantage and honor of each, and 
the augmentation of their combined influence for good upon the 
world. 

Again, the world has received much of its impressions respect- 
ing Russia through the distorted media of English and French 
prejudices. Speaking merely as Englishmen or Frenchmen, per- 
sons have too often given us the impressions of one form of des- 
potism, though it may be somewhat mitigated, against another 
form. Their stand-points have been too low and too circumscribed 
to give the fairest view ; whereas, the point from which to obtain 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

such a view of any government is the highest peak of liberty, and 
no man, speaking simply as an Englishman or a Frenchman, nor yet 
even merely as an American, can be a perfectly impartial judge 
of other governments; because, the highest point — the Mount 
Washington of genuine liberty — is yet outside of all existing 
governments, and that man has attained nearest its summit who 
feels and speaks most as a man, as one of the race unbiased 
by national prejudice, and is possessed of the most enlightened 
philanthropy and the largest Christian principle. 

These thoughts, it is apprehended, are important to a right 
consideration of the " Eastern Question," which is now exciting a 
new and universal public interest. All eyes are turned, with deep 
solicitude, to the scene of hostilities between Russia and Turkey. 
Sympathies are enlisted, opinions are formed, hopes and fears 
alternate, not so much in view of the issue of the contest with 
respect to either or both of the two principal contending nations, 
as of its final bearings upon the destinies, not only of Europe, 
but of the world. ''Kings and emperors are on tiptoe looking out 
for their crowns, politicians for their offices and salaries, mer- 
chants for their commerce, and Christians for the truth that they 
love more than all the rest. The friends of all that is good are 
inclined to despond, and to fear, in the event of the success of 
Russia, that all is lost ; and they are aided in this feeling both 
by the long-cherished apprehension of the invincible power and 
despotic aggression of Russia, and by their natural sympathy for 
the weaker party, and, especially in this case, as of late they see, 
or think they see, more indications of Christian toleration in Tur- 
key than in her more powerful antagonist. 

But commerce, learning and religion, have nothing to hope for, 
but everything to fear, from Mahometanism. This is the lesson 
of its history from the beginning. Nothing is to be feared, in 
the long run, from the overthrow of the power of the Moslem, 
by whomsoever it may be brought about. What of toleration it 
has granted seems to be a mere conventional or political regula- 
tion, forced upon it by the powers upon whom it is dependent for 
national protection. There is still no toleration for the Turk, as 
a reasoning, responsible being. Witness the recent beheading of 



8 INTRODUCTION. 

a man for renouncing the false prophet in favor of Christ. Let 
Turkey be subdued and Greece be annexed to Russia, as would 
probably soon be the case, and, though temporary embarrassments 
might obstruct the progress of free institutions, yet those same 
influences that have rendered Greece so indigestible to the Sul- 
tan may make it equally so to the Autocrat, and lead to the 
transformation of his empire, the popularizing of its government, 
and the actual transfer of the seat of its power to Athens or 
Constantinople. For, where the greatest degree of genuine Chris- 
tian light and liberty shall prevail, there is the pledge and the 
nucleus of a future and ultimate supremacy that shall bless man- 
kind. And it has been said by high authority, of late, speaking 
of Athens and Constantinople, — " In both these cities there is 
more freedom of speech, pen and action, more political and re- 
ligious tolerance, than in any other continental capitals." Though 
this must be taken with considerable limitation, there is evidently 
a light kindling there to scatter the darkness, and break the power 
that has so long oppressed the surrounding nations. 

It is well, therefore, to take enlightened and extensive views 
of this " Eastern Question " before, as Americans, we allow our 
sympathies to carry us decidedly to either side of the two prin- 
cipal belligerent powers. Our mission, as Americans, is rather 
still to cultivate our own field — to expend our national sympa- 
thies at home, and be content to look on and see the nations of 
the Eastern world work out their own political destiny. 

J. C. W. 

Hopkinton, Feb. 16, 1854. 



RUSSIA. 



CHAPTER I. 

RUSSIA, TURKEY, AND ENGLAND 

Contents. — Persevering Efforts of an Individual to rouse the People of 
Britain in favor of Turkey and against Russia. — Protest against any 
"Wish to palliate the Violence and Aggression of Russia. — Peace and Non- 
intervention the WriteFs sole Object. — Character of the Turkish Gov- 
ernment — contrasted with that of Russia. — Consequences to Humanity 
and Civilization of the Occupation of Constantinople by the Russians. — 
Absurd Apprehension of Injury to our Trade from the Greatness of Russia. 

— National Wealth the true Source of National Power ; not Extent of 
Territory. — Immense Power of the Manufacturing Districts of England. 

— Lord Dudley Stuart's and Mr. T. Attwood's Indiscreet Zeal for British 
Interference with Russia. — State of the Caucasian Tribes — the Geor- 
gians, Circassians, &o. — Condition of Wallachia and Moldavia — Persia — 
the Crimea — Finland. 

It has been somewhere remarked that, in former times, some 
false alarms usually preceded or accompanied a new war. Thus, in 
1792, Mr. Saunderson, then Lord Mayor, and soon afterwards made 
a Baronet, got up in his place in the House of Commons, and 
declared that he knew of a plot to surprise the Tower of London. 
All England was thrown into a fear of the Jacobins, and the anti- 
Jacobin war soon afterwards followed ; but of the conspiracy to 
seize the Tower not another word was heard. Again, at the close 
of the short peace, or, more properly speaking, the truce of 
Amiens, it was alleged in all the public prints, and subsequently 
inserted in the declaration of war, that Bonaparte had armies 
ready to invade England ; and, in proof, it was adduced that in- 



10 



RUSSIA. 



structions had been given to the French diplomatic and commer- 
cial agents to take surveys and soundings of our coasts and har- 
bors.^ The people, thus deluded into an anti-Bonaparte war, 
forgot that many different surveys of every part of our coast, and 
of every harbor in the British dominions, might have been pur- 
chased for a few shillings at every hydrographer's or chart-seller's; 
and that no foreigner, by years of study, could have added an 
iota to the information contained in the various pilot-books then 
used in the different channels. We live in other times ; but still 
the constitution of our government, which gives to the court the 
power of declaring war, and to the Commons the privilege of pro- 
viding for its expenses, remains the same ; and, however we may 
be verging upon a more secure era, we confess we think there is 
sufficient ground in the predominant influence which an aristoc- 
racy essentially warlike exercises at this moment in the ministry, 
to warn our readers and the public against the passion for a fool- 
ish war, with which the minds of the people have been latterly 
very industriously inflamed. We do not charge the noble lords 
who form the great majority in the cabinet with a design to stim- 
ulate the country to demand hostilities with Russia ; the policy 
of the ministry may probably have stopped far short of that, and 
aimed only at accomplishing an augmentation of the army or navy. 
Certain it is, however, that one active mind has, during the last 
two years, materially influenced the tone of several of the news- 
papers of this kingdom in reference to the affairs of Russia and 
Turkey, and incessantly roused public opinion, through every 
accessible channel of the periodical press, against the former and 
in favor of the latter nation. Certain it is, moreover, that this 

* « When once Persia fell under the yoke of Russia, one great obstacle 
to the acquirement of that which constituted our possessions in the East 
would be removed. He hoped that its success was impossible, it was at least 
problematical ; but this, at all events, was in no degree doubtful, that the 
matter was very seriously entertained at St. Petersburg. In the war-office 
there, maps and plans, drawn expressly for the purpose, were deposited, showing not 
only the practicability of such a scheme of aggrandizement, but the various modes in 
which it might be best carried into effect, and the way the several military stations nec- 
essary for the purpose might be established." — Lord Dudley Stuart's Speech, 
House of Commons, Feb. 19, 183G. 



RUSSIA. 



11 



individual, if not previously an agent of the government, has lat- 
terly become so by being appointed to a diplomatic post in our 
embassy at Constantinople.^ How far this indefatigable spirit 
has been successful in his design to diffuse a feeling of terror and 
a spirit of hatred towards Russia in the public mind, may be ascer- 
tained by any one who will take the trouble to sound the opin- 
ions of his next neighbor upon the subject, whom, it is ten to one, 
he will find an alarmist about the subtlety of Pozzo di Borgo, the 
cruelty of the Czar, and the barbarism of the Russians. He most 
likely will find him to possess but vague feelings of apprehension, 
and very little exactness of knowledge upon the subject ; he will 
not know, perhaps, precisely, whether the province of Moldavia be 
on the right or the left bank of the Danube, or whether the Bal- 
kan and the ancient Haemus be an identical range of mountains ; 
he will have but an indistinct acquaintance with the geography 
of Asia Minor, and probably confound the Bosphorus with the 
Dardanelles ; but still he shall be profoundly alarmed at the en- 
croachments of Russia in those quarters, and quite willing to go to 
war to prevent them. Such, we gravely assert, is the feeling and 
such are the opinions of the great majority of those who take their 
doctrines from some of the newspapers at this moment, upon the 
question of Russian aggrandizement. Believing that the fate of 
Turkey, and the designs of her great northern neighbor, are by no 
means matters that affect the interests of England so vitally as 
some writers imagine, we are yet more directly opposed to them, 
by entertaining a conviction that, even if the worst of their fore- 
bodings were to arrive, — if even Russia were to subjugate Tur- 
key, — England would gain rather than suffer by th "^ event. In 
order to state our views fairly upon this interesting and difficult 
question, it will be necessary for us to glance hastily at the past 
history and the present condition, as respects the government and 
resources, of the two empires ; and then, having assumed that 
Turkey had fallen a prey to the ambition of Russia, we will weigh 
the probable consequences of, and meet the possible objections to, 
such an event. 

* We state these facts from personal knowledge. 



12 RUSSIA. 

But, before entering upon our task, we would disavow all inten- 
tion of advocating the cause of Russian violence and aggression. 
It can only be necessary to say thus much at the outset of this 
pamphlet in order to prevent the reader from anticipating our 
design with an undue prepossession respecting our motives ; for the 
whole spirit and purpose of the following pages will show that we 
are hostile to the government of St. Petersburg, and to every 
principle of its foreign and domestic policy. Our sympathies flow 
altogether towards those free institutions which are favorable to 
the peace, wealth, education and happiness, of mankind. 

In comparing the Turkish government with that of Russia, how- 
ever, it will be found that the latter is immeasurably the superior 
in its laws and institutions ; and if, in the remarks which we shall 
have occasion to make, we should appear to bestow commendations 
upon that northern people, we entreat that the reader will con- 
sider us to be only speaking in comparison with its more barbarous 
and despotic Mahometan neighbor, and not from any abstract 
predilection in favor of the Russian nation. Again, whilst we 
argue that we should, in all probability, benefit by the subjuga- 
tion of Turkey by Russia, we do not attempt to justify, or even to 
palliate, the forcible spoliation of its territory ; still less do we advo- 
cate the intervention of the English government for the purpose 
of promoting such a conquest. Our sole object is to persuade the 
public that the wisest policy for England is, to take no part in 
those remote quarrels. To accomplish this end, we will endeavor 
to examine every distinct source of danger which the advocates for 
our interference in the affairs of states a thousand miles distant 
adduce as arguments in defence of their policy. We shall claim 
the right jf putting the question entirely upon a footing of self- 
interest. We do not, for a moment, imagine that it is necessary 
for us to show that we are not called upon to preserve the peace 
and good order of the entire world. Indeed, those writers and 
speakers who argue in favor of our intervention in the affairs of 
Russia and Turkey invariably do so upon the pretence that our 
commerce, our colonies, or our national existence, are endangered 
by the encroachments of the former empire. We trust the futil- 



RUSSIA. 13 

ity of such fears will be shown by the following appeal to reason, 
experience and facts. 

The Turks, a race of the Tartars of Asia, conquered Constanti- 
nople in 1453. In the Succeeding century, this people struck ter- 
ror into all Europe by their conquests. They subdued Egypt, 
the Barbary States, and all the Arabian coasts on the Red Sea. 
In Europe, they conquered the Crimea and the countries along the 
Danube; they overran Hungary and Transylvania, and repeatedly 
laid siege to Vienna. At sea, notwithstanding the gallant resist- 
ance of the Venetians, they subdued Rhodes, Cyprus, and all the 
Greek islands. Down to our own time, the Turks governed a 
territory so vast and fertile that, in ancient ages, it comprised 
Egypt, Phoenicia, Syria, Greece, Carthage, Thrace, Pontus, Bithy- 
nia, Cappadocia, Epirus, and Armenia, besides other less renowned 
empires. From three of these states went forth, at various epochs, 
conquerors who vanquished and subjected the then entire known 
world. The present lamentable condition of this fine territory, so 
renowned in former times, arises from no change in the seasons, or 
defalcation of nature. It still stretches from thirty-four to forty-eight 
degrees north, within the temperate zone, and upon the same parallels 
of latitude as Spain, France, and all the best portion of the United 
States. " Mount Haemus," says Malte Brun, " is still covered 
with verdant forests ; the plains of Thrace, Macedonia and Thes- 
saly, yield abundant and easy harvests to the husbandman ; a thou- 
sand ports and a thousand gulfs are observed on the coasts, penin- 
sulas, and islands. The calm billows of these tranquil seas still 
bathe the base of mountains covered with vines and olive-trees. 
But the populous and numerous towns mentioned by ancient 
writers have been changed into deserts beneath a despotic govern- 
ment." All the authorities upon this country assure us that the 
soil of many parts of Turkey is more fruitful than the richest 
plains of Sicily. When grazed by the rudest plough, it yields a 
more abundant harvest than the finest fields between the Eure 
and the Loire, the granary of France. Mines of silver^copper 
and iron, are still existing, and salt abounds in the country. Cot- 
ton, tobacco and silk, might be made the staple exports of this 
region, and their culture admits of almost unlimited extension 
2 



14 RUSSIA. 

throughout the Turkish territory ; while some of the native wines 
are equal to those of Burgundy. Almost every species of tree 
flourishes in European Turkey. The heights on the Danube are 
clad with apple, pine, cherry and apricot trees ; whole forests of 
these may be seen in Wallachia ; and they cover the hills of 
Thrace, Macedonia and Epirus; The olive, orange, mastic, fig, 
and pomegranate, — the laurel, myrtle, and nearly all the beautiful 
and aromatic shrubs and plants, — are natural to this soil. Nor 
are the animal productions less valuable than those of vegetable 
life. The finest horses have been drawn from this quarter to im- 
prove the breeds of western Europe ; and the rich pastures of 
European Turkey are, probabty, the best adapted in the world for 
rearing the largest growths of cattle and sheep. 

That, in a region so highly favored, the population should have 
retrograded whilst surrounded by abundance, that its wealth and 
industry should have been annihilated, and that commerce should 
be banished from those rivers and harbors that first called it into 
existence, must be accounted for by remembering that the 
finest soil, the most genial climate, or the brightest intellectual 
and physical gifts of human nature, are as nothing when sub- 
jected to the benumbing influences of the government of Con- 
stantinople. It is necessary to refer to the religion and the 
maxims of its professors, which constitute all that serves as a 
substitute for law with this Mahometan people, if we would know 
the causes why ignorance, barbarism and poverty, now over- 
spread the fairest lands of Asia and Europe. The Turks pro- 
fess, as is well known, the most bigoted and intolerant branch of 
the Mahometan faith ; they regard with equal detestation the 
Persian Shiite and the follower of Christ ; nay, the more zealous 
amongst their doctors contend that it is as meritorious to slay one 
Shiite as twenty Christians. Their colleges, or madresses teach 
nothing but the Mahometan theology; many years being sp-mt in 
mastering such knotty points as whether the feet should be washed 
at rising, or only rubbed with the dry hand. As the orthodox 
Turk, of whatever rank, is taught to despise all other fields of 
learning than the Koran, under the belief that Mahomet has, in 
that sacred book, recorded all that his faithful followers are required 



RUSSIA. 15 

to know, it follows, of course, that he is religiously ignorant 
of all that forms the education of a Frenchman, German or 
Italian ; he knows nothing of the countries beyond the bounds 
of the Sultan's dominions. The Turks (unlike the liberal Per- 
sians, who have made some advances in science) are unacquainted 
with the uses of the commonest scientific instruments, which are 
exhibited to them by travellers just as we do to amuse children. 
Notwithstanding that this people have been for nearly four cen- 
turies in absolute possession of all the noblest remains of ancient 
art, they have evinced no taste for architecture or sculpture, 
whilst painting and music are equally unknown to them. Nor 
have they been less careless about the preservation of ancient 
than the creation of modern works of labor and ingenuity. They 
found, at the conquest of the Eastern empire, splendid and sub- 
stantial public and private edifices, which have been barbarously 
destroyed, or allowed to crumble beneath the hand of time ; and 
huts of wood, compared by travellers to large boxes * standing 
in rows, with their lids opening upon hinges, compose the streets 
of modern Constantinople, and other large cities. Bridges, aque- 
ducts and harbors, the precious and durable donations of remote 
yet more enlightened generations, have all suffered a like fate ; 
and the roads, even in the vicinity of the capital, which in former 
ages maintained an unrivalled celebrity, are described, by the 
last touristjt to be now in so broken and neglected a state as to 
present a barrier against the progress of artillery as complete as 
though it had been designed by an engineer for that purpose. 

The cause of all this decay is ascribable to the genius of the 
Turkish government, — a fierce, unmitigated, military despotism, 
allied with the fanaticism of a brutalizing religion, which teaches 
its followers to rely solely on the sword, and to disdain all im- 
provement and labor. The Sultan, who is the vicegerent of the 
prophet, holds both temporal and spiritual authority over his fol- 
lowers; and this enables him to sway the lives and destinies of 
the people with an absoluteness greater than was ever enjoyed by 

* Willis — " Pencillings by the Way." 
t Quin — "Voyage down the Danube." 



16 RUSSIA. 

any tyrant of ancient times ; unchecked, too, by the growth of 
cities, the increase of knowledge, or the accumulation of wealth, 
— all which are alike incompatible with the present govern- 
ment of the country. Every man who is invested with absolute 
power is at liberty to delegate his power unimpaired to another : 
the Sultan is the vicegerent of the prophet ; every pasha is a rep- 
resentative of the Sultan, and every soldier who carries an order 
the representative of the pasha. The situations of pasha and 
cadi, or judge, are all given to the highest bidders, who are 
removable at will, and, of course, take care to indemnify them- 
selves at the expense of the governed. " It is a fact of public 
notoriety," says Thornton,^ " that governments of every descrip- 
tion are openly sold at the Porte ; they are held for the term of one 
year only, and, at the ensuing bai?'am, the leases must be renewed 
or transferred to a less parsimonious competitor. In the public 
registers the precise value of every important post under govern- 
ment is recorded, and the regular remittance of the taxes and 
tribute is the only acknowledged criterion of upright administra- 
tion." It is a fundamental principle that all the property con- 
quered by the Turks belongs to the Sultan. Hence the Chris- 
tians are accounted the slaves of the conqueror, and they are only 
allowed to live by paying a heavy tribute, the receipt for which 
bears that it is the ransom of their heads ! 

Probably in nothing has this people been more unduly repre- 
sented than in the praises which have been bestowed on their 
unrestricted principles of trade. The Turk knows nothing, and 
cares as little, about freedom of commerce; he disdains trade 
himself, and despises it in others ; and, if he has failed to imitate 
more civilized (though, certainly, in this point of view, not wiser) 
nations, by fortifying his coasts with custom-houses, it is certainly 
from no wise principle of taxation, but simply because such a 
circuitous method of fiscal exaction would be far too complicated 
and wearisome for the minds of Ottoman governors, who prefer 
the simpler mode of raising a revenue by the direct extortion of 
the pasha or the aga. Far from favoring the extension of com- 
merce, one great cause of the present barbarism and the past 

* « Present State of Turkey." 



RUSSIA. 17 

unhappy condition of Turkey is to be found in the aversion and 
contempt which its people bear for trade. " The Jews," says 
Hadji-Khalfa, the Turkish writer, in speaking of Salonica, " em- 
ploy many workmen in their different manufactories — support a 
number of schools, in which there are not fewer than two hun- 
dred masters. The caravans that travel from Salonica to Semlin, 
Vienna, and Leipsig, are loaded with cotton, tobacco, carpets, 
and leather. It is a shame," continues the orthodox Hadji- 
Khalfa, " that so many Jews are allowed to remain in Salonica ; 
the excitement thus given to trade is apt to blind true believers." 
The fate of those vast and rich tracts bordering upon the Black 
Sea and its tributary rivers affords ample proof that the genius 
of Mahometanism is inimical to the interests of commerce and 
agriculture. The trade carried on by the ancients upon the 
shores of the Euxine was very considerable, and gave life and 
wealth to several populous cities mentioned in history. In more 
modern times, the Genoese formed establishments upon the coasts 
of the Black Sea, and they took the lead in navigating those 
waters down to the fifteenth century. At the taking of Con- 
stantinople the Turks closed the Black Sea against the ships of 
Europe, and from that time its navigation was lost to the com- 
merce of the world for a period of more than three centuries. 

By the treaty of Kanardgi, in 1774, the ships of Russia were 
allowed to pass the Bosphorus ; other countries soon afterwards 
obtained similar privileges ; some restrictions, which it was still 
attempted to keep up, were removed by the treaty between the 
Russians and Turks in 1829 ; and the Black Sea is now, for com- 
mercial purposes, as open as the Mediterranean. The importance 
of this vast extension of commercial navigation cannot, at present, 
be fully appreciated, owing to the unfortunate condition of the 
population which inhabits those regions. Some idea may, how- 
ever, be formed of the extent and probable importance of those 
great rivers which fall into the Black Sea, by the following esti- 
mate, furnished by Malte Brun : 

If all the rivers in Europe be as 1.000 

Those which flow into the Black Sea, 0.273 

" " Mediterranean, 0.144 

9# 



18 RUSSIA. 

Of all the features belonging to the Turkish national character, 
there is none less favorable than that which relates to the neglect 
and contempt with which that people has invariably treated 
affairs of trade. Whether it be owing to that dogma of their 
creed which forbids the receiving interest for money, or to that 
other familiar text of the Koran, which says, " There is but one 
law, and that forbids all communication with infidels," certain it 
is that such an example as a Turkish merchant transacting mat- 
ters of commerce with a foreign trader was scarcely ever known 
in that country. This is an anomaly the more striking, when we 
refer to other countries, less advantageously situated ; as, for 
instance, China, where trade has acquired an importance, and is 
conducted on a system the growth of ages of good government, 
and of a like period of patient industry in the people. Nothing 
but a tyrannical despotism, at once sanguinary and lawless, could 
have had the effect of repelling commerce from the superb harbor 
of Constantinople ; but, alas ! the thousand ships which might 
find secure anchorage there would seek in vain for the rich 
freights of silk, cotton and wool, which ought to await their 
coming ; such is the character of its people and their rulers, that 
no native capitalists have ever been emboldened to accumulate a 
store of merchandise to tempt the rapacity of the Sultan ; and 
vessels which trade to Constantinople have frequently occasion to 
go to Salonica, Smyrna, or some other port, for return cargoes. 

Before we turn away from this hasty and assuredly not very 
pleasing glance at the Ottoman nation, it would be uncandid if 
we omitted to notice the imputed virtues of the Turks ; foremost 
amongst which stands charity, a quality enjoined to all true 
believers by the words of Mahomet, and which includes within its 
operation the inferior animals. They are reputed to be honorable 
in their dealings, and faithful to their words — characteristics of 
the haughty masters, as lying and chicane are natural to the 
slave. The Turks are forbidden the use of wine ; but then they 
console themselves by substituting the eternal coffee, tobacco and 
opium, and by other sensual indulgences. 

" We turn," in the words of a great writer, u from the soil of 



RUSSIA. 19 

barbarism and the crescent, to a country whose inhabitants par- 
ticipate in the blessings of Christianity and European civilization." 
Russia comprises one-half of Europe, one-third of Asia, and 
a portion of America ; and includes within its bounds nearly 
sixty millions, or a sixteenth portion of the human race. Its terri- 
tory stretches, in length, from the Black Sea to the confines of 
Upper Canada ; and from the border of China to the Arctic Sea, 
in width. The stupendous size of the Russian empire has excited 
the wonder and alarm of timid writers, who forget that " it is an 
identity of language, habits and character, and not the soil or 
the name of a master, which constitutes a great and powerful 
nation." Ruling over eighty different nations or tribes, the Auto- 
crat of all the Russias claims the allegianee of people of every 
variety of race, tongue, and religion. Were it possible to trans- 
port to one common centre of his empire the gay opera lounger 
of St. Petersburg, habited in the Parisian mode ; the fierce 
Bashkir of the Ural Mountain, clad in rude armor, and armed 
with bow and arrows ; the Crimean, with his camel, from the 
southern steppes ; and the Esquimaux, who traverses with his 
dogs the frozen regions of the north, — these fellow-subjects of 
one potentate would encounter each other with all the surprise 
and ignorance of individuals meeting from England, China, Peru, 
and New Holland ; nor would the time or expense incurred in the 
journey be greater in the latter than the former interview^ It 
must be obvious to every reflecting mind that vast deductions 
must be made from the written and statistical resources of a 
nation possessing no unison of religious or political feeling, when 
put in competition with other empires, identified in faith, lan- 
guage, and national characteristics. The popular mind has been, 
however, greatly misled by many writers on the Russian empire, 
who have sought to impress their readers with the idea of the 
overwhelming size of its territory, and who have, at the same time, 
wilfully or ignorantly omitted to mention other facts, which, if 
taken in connection, serve to render that very magnitude of sur- 
face a source of weakness rather than power. We are furnished 
by Malte Brun with some tables of the relative densities of the 
population of the European empires, which will help to illus- 



20 RUSSIA. 

trate our views upon this subject, and from which we give an 
extract. 

Inhabitants. 

Russia, for each square league, 181 

Prussia, 792 

France, 1063 

England, 1457 

Now, the same law applies to communities as to physics — in 
proportion as you condense you strengthen, and as you draw out 
you weaken bodies ; and, according to this rule, the above table, 
which makes Prussia more than four times as closely peopled as 
Russia, would, bearing in mind the advantages of her denser pop- 
ulation, give to the former power an equality of might with her 
unwieldy neighbor, which, we have no doubt, is quite consistent 
with the truth ; whilst the same tabular test, if applied to Russia, 
France and England, would assign much the greater share of 
power to the two latter nations, — which experience has demon- 
strated to be the fact. Here, then, we have the means of exem- 
plifying, by a very simple appeal to figures (ever the best reason- 
ing weapons), how the vastness of territory of the Russians is the 
cause of debility rather than of strength. It would be a trite 
illustration of a self-evident truism if we were to adduce, as a 
proof of our argument, the practice in military tactics. What 
general ever dreamed of scattering his troops, by way of increas- 
ing tiheir power ? Bonaparte gained his terrible battles by inan- 
oeuvering great masses of men in smaller limits than any preceding 
commanders. 

But the same geographer supplies us with a graduated scale of 
the relative taxation of these countries, which affords a yet more 
convincing proof of the disadvantageous position of Russia. 

Russia, each, inhabitant contributes to government, . . . £0 11 8 

Prussia, " « « 17 6 

France, « « « 18 4 

England, " " " 3 13 4 

Now, assuming, as we may safely do, that these governments draw 
the utmost possible revenue from their subjects, what a dispropor- 
tion here is between the wealth of the closely-peopled Britain and 
the poverty of the scantily-populated Russia ! We find, too, that 



RUSSIA. 21 

the gradation of wealth is in the direct proportion to the density 
of the inhabitants of the four countries. Here, then, we have a 
double source of weakness for Russia, which would operate in a 
duplicate ratio to her disadvantage, in case that nation were 
plunged into a war with either of those other states ; for, whilst 
her armies must necessarily be mustered from greater distances, 
at proportionate cost, and with less ability on her part to bear 
those charges, her rivals would possess troops more compactly 
positioned, and, at the same time, the greater means of transport- 
ing them ; — in a word, the one party would require the funds, 
and not possess them, whilst the other would, comparatively speak- 
ing, have the money, and not want it. A necessary evil attends 
the wide-spread character of the population of Russia, in the 
absence of those large towns which serve as centres of intelligence 
and nurses of civilization in other countries. Thus, in those vast 
regions, we have the cities of 

Petersburg, with a population of 305,000 

Moscow, 190,000 

Warsaw, 117,000 

Kasan, 50,000 

Kiow, 40,000 

whilst we find the remainder of the large places on the map of 
Russia to be only, in size, upon a par with the third-rate towns 
of England. That in a country of such vast extent, and compris- 
ing sixty millions of people, and where so few populous cities 
exist, the great mass of the inhabitants are living in poverty, 
ignorance and barbarism, scarcely rising above a state of nature, 
must be apparent. Tribes of Cossacks and of Tartars, wandering 
over the low countries of Caucasia, own a formal allegiance to 
Russia. Other hordes, dignified by the alarmist writers on the 
subject of Russian greatness with the title of nations, — such as 
the Circassians, the Georgians, the Mingrelians, with more than 
thirty other tribes, some Christians, others Mahometan, or of a 
mixed creed, occupying the mountainous regions of the Caucasus, 
— are wholly or partially subdued to the dominion of the Czar. 
These fierce tribes are addicted to all the rude habits of savages ; 
they live by the chase, or the cultivation of a little millet ; they 



22 



RUSSIA. 



commit barbarous outrages, and buy and sell each other for slaves, 
often disposing of their own children, brothers and sisters, to 
the Turks. Against these refractory and half-subdued neighbors 
the Russians are compelled to keep fortresses along the frontier. 

If we pass to northern Russia, we find the Samoiedes, a people 
enduring nearly six months of perpetual night, and enjoying, in 
requital, a day of two months. With them, corn is sown, ripened 
and reaped, in sixty days. In the governments of Wologda, Arch- 
angel, and Olonetz (for even in this almost uninhabitable region 
man has established his ministerial arrangements and political 
divisions) , the climate is of such a nature that human industry can 
hardly contend against the elements, and the scanty produce of 
his labor enables the husbandman scarcely to protract a painful 
and sometimes precarious existence. Trees disappear on the 
sterile plains, the plants are stunted, corn withers, the marshy 
meadows are covered with rushes and mosses, and the whole of 
vegetable nature proclaims the vicinity of the pole. 

Over these desolate wastes a traveller might journey five hun- 
dred miles, and not encounter one solitary human habitation. The 
government or province of Orenburg is larger than the entire 
kingdom of Prussia, and yet contains only a population of one 
million souls ! 

There are, however, vast districts — as, for example, the whole 
of Little Russia, and the Ukraine — of fertile territory, equal in 
richness to any part of Europe ; and it has been estimated that 
Russia contains more than seven hundred and fifty thousand 
square miles of land of a quality not inferior to the best portions 
of Germany, and upon which a population of two hundred mil- 
lions of people might find subsistence. Here, then, is the field 
upon which the energies of the government and the industry of its 
subjects should be, for the next century, exclusively devoted ; and 
if the best interests of Russia were understood, or if its govern- 
ment would attain to that actual power which ignorant writers 
proclaim for it in the possession of boundless wastes and im- 
penetrable forests, she should cease the wars of the sword, and 
begin the battle with the wilderness, by constructing railroads, 
building bridges, deepening rivers; by fostering the accumula- 



RUSSIA. 23 

tion of capital, the growth of cities, and the increase of civilization 
and freedom. These are the only sources of power and wealth 
in an age of imjn'ovement ; and until Russia, like America, 
draws from her plains, mountains and rivers, those resources 
which can be developed only by patient labor, vain are her boasts 
of geographical extent. As well might the inhabitants of the 
United States vaunt of their unexplored possessions west of the 
Rocky Mountains, or England plume herself upon the desert 
tracts of New Holland. 

If such be the true interests of Russia, it will be admitted, then, 
that the conquest of those extensive and almost depopulated regions 
now withering under the government of the Sultan would only be 
a wider departure from this enlightened policy. Assuming that 
such a conquest had taken place, it follows that the population of 
the Russian empire would become still more diversified in charac- 
ter, and of a yet more heterogeneous nature, whilst it at the same 
time would diffuse itself over a far wider surface of territory ; and, 
if the arguments which we have offered are founded in reason, 
then the first effects of all this must be, that Russia would herself 
be weakened by this still greater distension of her dominion. 
What, then, becomes of our apprehensions about the safety of 
India, or the possession of the Ionian Islands, the freedom of the 
Mediterranean, our maritime supremacy, or the thousand other 
dangers with which we are threatened as the immediate conse- 
quence of the possession of Constantinople by the Russians ? 

If we would form a fair estimate of the probable results of 
that event, we ought to glance, for a moment, at the conduct 
of the same people, under somewhat similar circumstances, 
in another quarter. The policy pursued by Russia on the 
G-ulf of Finland (where St. Petersburg arose, like an exhalation 
from the marshes of the Neva), when those districts were wrested 
by its founder from the maniac Charles XII., would, we have a 
right to assume, be imitated by the same nation on the shores of 
the Bosphorus. Let us here pause to do homage to that noblest 
example of history, far surpassing the exploits of Alexander or 
Napoleon — that sublime act of devotion at the shrine of com- 
merce and civilization offered by Peter the Great, who, to instruct 



24 RUSSIA. 

his subjects in the science of navigation and the art of ship-build- 
ing, voluntarily descended from the throne, where he was sur- 
rounded by the pomp and splendor of a great potentate, and 
became a menial workman in the dock-yards of Saardam and Dept- 
ford. We vindicate not his crimes or his vices, the common 
attributes of the condition of society in which he lived ; his cruelty 
was but the natural fruit of irresponsible power in savage life, 
and his acts of grossness and intemperance were regarded by the 
nation as honorable exploits ; but the genius that enabled him to 
penetrate the thick clouds of prejudice and ignorance which 
enveloped his people, and to perceive, afar off, the power which 
civilization and commerce confer upon nations, was the offspring 
of his own unaided spirit, and will ever be worthy of peculiar 
honor at the hands of the historian. Everybody knows under 
what trying disadvantages this metropolis, planted in the midst 
of unhealthy and barren marshes, and in a latitude that, by the 
ancients, was placed beyond the limits of civilization, sprung from 
the hands of its founder, and stood forth the most wonderful phe- 
nomenon of the eighteenth century. At present, this capital, which 
contains upwards of three hundred thousand inhabitants, and is 
termed, from the splendor of its public buildings, a city of palaces, 
can boast of scientific bodies which are in correspondence with all 
the learned societies of Europe. The government has sent out 
circumnavigators who have made discoveries in remote regions of 
the globe. St. Petersburg contains museums of art and literature ; 
some of the first specimens of sculpture and painting are to be seen 
in its public halls; its public libraries contain twice as many 
volumes as those of London ; and the best collection of Chinese, 
Japanese, and Mongol books is to be found on their shelves. All 
the decencies and even elegances of life, observable in Paris or Lon- 
don, are found to prevail over this northern metropolis ; and there 
is nothing in the streets (unless it be the costume of the people, 
necessary to meet the exigencies of the climate) to remind the eye 
of the traveller that he is not in one of the more western Christian 
capitals. 

We may fairly assume that, were Russia to seize upon the 
capital of Turkey, the consequences would not, at least, be less 



RUSSIA. 25 

favorable to humanity and civilization than those which succeeded to 
her conquests on the Gulf of Finland a century ago. The seraglio 
of the Saltan would be once more converted into the palace of a 
Christian monarch ; the lasciviousness of the harem would disap- 
pear at the presence of his Christian empress ; those walls which 
now resound only to the voice of the eunuch and the slave, and 
witness nothing but deeds of guilt and dishonor, would then echo 
the footsteps of travellers and the voices of men of learning, or 
behold the assemblage of high-souled and beautiful women, of 
exalted birth and rare accomplishments, the virtuous companions 
of ambassadors, tourists and merchants, from all the capitals of 
Europe. We may fairly and reasonably assume that such con- 
sequences would follow the conquest of Constantinople : and can 
any one doubt that, if the government of St. Petersburg were 
transferred to the shores of the Bosphorus, a splendid and sub- 
stantial European city would, in less than twenty years, spring up, 
in the place of those huts which now constitute the capital of 
Turkey ? — that noble public buildings would arise, learned 
societies flourish, and the arts prosper ? — that, from its natural 
beauties and advantages, Constantinople would become an attract- 
ive resort for civilized Europeans ? — that the Christian religion, 
operating instantly upon the laws and institutions of the country, 
would ameliorate the condition of its people ? — that the slave- 
market, which is now polluting the Ottoman capital, centuries 
after the odious traffic has been banished from the soil of Christian 
Europe, would be abolished? — that the demoralizing and un- 
natural law of polygamy, under which the fairest portion of the 
creation becomes an object of brutal lust and an article of daily 
traflic, would be discountenanced ? — and that the plague, no 
longer fostered by the filth and indolence of the people, would 
cease to ravage countries placed in the healthiest latitudes and 
blessed with the finest climate in the world ? Can any rational 
mind doubt that these changes would follow from the occupation 
of Constantinople by Russia, every one of which, so far as the 
difference in the cases permitted, has already been realized more 
than a century in St, Petersburg ? But the interests of England, 
it is alleged, would be endangered by such changes. We deny 
3 



26 RUSSIA. 

that the progress of improvement and the advance of civilization 
can be inimical to the welfare of Great Britain. To assert that 
we, a commercial and manufacturing people, have an interest in 
retaining the fairest regions in Europe in barbarism and ignorance, 
— that we are benefited because poverty, slavery, polygamy, and 
the plague, abound in Turkey, — is a fallacy too gross even for 
refutation. 

One of the greatest dangers apprehended (for we set out with 
promising to answer the popular objections to the aggrandizement 
of Russia in this quarter) is, from the injury which would be 
inflicted upon our trade ; which trade, exclusively of that portion 
of our nominal exports to Turkey which really goes to Persia, 
does not much exceed half a million yearly, — an amount so con- 
temptible, when we recollect the population, magnitude, and 
natural fertility of that empire, that it might safely be predicted, 
under no possible form of government could it be diminished. 
But Russia is said, by the panegyrists of Turkey, to be an anti- 
commercial country. We have already seen that to Russian 
influence we are indebted for the liberation of the Black Sea from 
the thraldom in which it had been held, by Turkish jealousy, for 
three hundred years. If, however, we would judge of the proba- 
ble conduct of that people after the conquest of Constantinople, 
we must appeal to the experience which they have given us of 
their commercial policy at St. Petersburg. The first Dutch 
merchant vessel (whose captain was welcomed with honors and 
loaded with presents by Peter the Great) entered that harbor in 
1703 ; and, at the present time, fifteen hundred vessels clear out 
annually from the capital of Russia for all parts of the world. 
The internal navigation of this vast empire has been improved, 
with a patience and perseverance, in the last century, which, bear- 
ing in mind the impediments of climate and soil, are deserving 
our astonishment and admiration, and which contrast strangely 
with the supineness of that Mahometan people, whose habits are, 
according to some writers, so favorable to trade, but in whose 
country not one furlong of canal or navigable stream, the labor of 
Turkish hands, has been produced in upwards of three hundred 
years ! Three great lines of navigation, one of them fourteen hun- 






RUSSIA. 27 

dred miles long, extend through the interior of Russia, by which 
the waters of the Baltic, the Caspian, and the Black Sea are brought 
into connection ; and by which channels the provinces of the Volga, 
the plains of the Ukraine, and the forests and mines of Siberia, 
transmit their products to the markets of Moscow and St. Peters- 
burg.^ Much as may with truth be alleged against the lust for 
aggrandizement with which Russian counsels have been actuated, 
yet, if we examine, we shall find that it is by the love of improve- 
ment, the security given by laws to life and property, but, 
above all, owing to the encouragement afforded to commerce, 
that this empire has, more than by conquest, been brought forth 
from her frozen regions to hold a first rank among the nations of 
Europe. 

The laws for the encouragement of trade are direct and import- 
ant; and their tendency is to destroy the privileges of the nobles, 
by raising up a middle class, precisely in the same way by which 
our own Plantagenets countervailed the powers of the barons. 
Every Russian, carrying on trade, must be a burgher, and a 
registered member of a guild or company ; and of these guilds 
there are three ranks, according to the capitals of the members : 

Ten thousand to fifty thousand roubles! entitles to foreign com- 
merce, exempts from corporal punishment, and qualifies to drive 
about in a carriage and pair. 

Five thousand to ten thousand roubles, — the members of this 
guild are confined to inland trade. 

One thousand to five thousand roubles includes petty shopkeepers. 

Besides these guilds for merchants, the porters of the large 
towns associate together in bodies, called artels, resembling, in 
some respects, the company of wine coopers in London, for the 
purpose of guaranteeing persons employing one of them from any 
loss or damage to his goods. Now, in a country, however far 
removed from a state of freedom and civilization [and we main- 
tain that, hi these respects, the condition of Russia is in arrear of all 
other Christian states), where laws such as these exist, for encour- 

* Boats may, we are told, go from St. Petersburg to the Caspian Sea, with- 
out unloading. 

t A rouble is about ten and one-half pence. 



28 RUSSIA. 

aging industry, conferring privileges upon traders, and doing 
honor to the accumulation of capital — in that country prodigious 
strides have been already taken on the only true path to enlight- 
enment and liberty. On this path the Turks have disdained to 
advance a single step. Here we have, at one glance, the distinctive 
characters of the Turkish and Russian, the Sclavonic and Mon- 
golian races — the former unchanging and stationary, the latter 
progressing and imitative. The very stringent laws which Russia 
has passed against the importation of our fabrics are indications 
of the same variety of character, evincing a desire to rival us in 
mechanical industry ; whilst the apathy with which the Turk sees 
every article of our manufactures enter his ports, without being 
stimulated to study the construction of a loom or spinning-frame, 
is but another manifestation of his inferior structure of intellect. 

To return, then, to the oft agitated question, as to the danger 
of our commerce consequent upon the conquest of Constantinople 
by Russia, are we not justified in assuming that our exports to 
Turkey would exceed half a million per annum, if that fertile 
region were possessed by a nation governed under laws for the 
fostering of trade such as we have just described ? Some persons 
argue, indeed, that, although the productive industry of those 
countries would augment under such supposed circumstances, still, 
so great is the enmity of the Russians towards England, that we 
should be excluded from all participation in its increase. But 
how stands the case if we appeal to the policy of that people, as 
already experienced, and find that, notwithstanding that our own 
tariff at this time interposes a duty of one hundred per cent, against 
the two staple articles of Russian produce, timber and corn, the 
amount of trade carried on between Great Britain and St. Peters- 
burg is equal to that of the latter with all the rest of the world 
together; for, of the fifteen hundred vessels clearing annually 
from that port, seven hundred and fifty are British? But 
it is contended that, if Russia were put in possession of the 
Turkish provinces, she would possess, within her own limits, 
such a command of all the natural products as might enable 
her to close the Hellespont against the world, and begin a 
Japanese system of commercial policy. To this we reply, that 



RUSSIA. 29 

commerce cannot, in the present day, turn hermit. It will not 
answer for a people to try, in the words of Sheridan, to get " an 
atmosphere and a sun of its own." Nay, better still, no country 
can carry on great financial transactions except through the 
medium of England. We are told by Mr. Rothschild, in his 
evidence before the legislature, that London is the metropolis of 
the moneyed world ; that no large commercial operations can 
possibly be carried on, but they must be, more or less, under the 
influence of this common centre of the financial system, round 
which the less affluent states, like the humbler orbs of the solar 
creation, revolve, and from whence they must be content to 
borrow lustre and nourishment. Supposing, indeed, that Russia 
were in possession of Turkey, and should commence a system of 
non-intercourse (we are under the necessity of making these 
whimsical suppositions in order to reply to grounds of argument 
which are actually advanced every day by grave writers upon 
this question), could she carry on those extensive manufactures 
tvhich some people predict without deriving a supply of raw 
ingredients from other countries ? It will suffice on this head, 
if we observe that, to enable any one of our manufacturers to 
conduct the simplest branch of his mechanical and chemical 
industry, it is requisite that he be duly supplied with materials 
the growth of every corner of the globe; — the commonest printed 
calico, worn by the poorest peasant's wife, is the united product 
of the four quarters of the earth; the cotton of America, the 
indigo of Asia, the gum of Africa, and the madder of Europe, 
must all be brought from those remote regions, and be made to 
combine with fifty other as apparently heterogeneous commodities, 
by ingenious arts and processes, the results of ten thousand phi- 
losophical experiments — and all to produce a rustic's gown-piece ! 
Whilst such are the exigencies of manufacturing industry, bind- 
ing us in abject dependence upon all the countries of the earth, 
may we not hope that freedom of commerce and an exemption 
from warfare will be the inevitable fruits of the future growth 
of that mechanical and chemical improvement, the germ of which 
has only been planted in our day ? Need we add one word to 
prove that Russia could not — unless she were to discover another 
3* 



30 RUSSIA. 

chemistry, which should wholly alter the properties of matter — 
at the same time seclude herself from the trade of the rest of the 
world, and become a rich and great manufacturing or commercial 
nation ? Wherever a country is found to favor foreign commerce, 
whether it be the United States, Russia, Holland, China, or Brazil 
(we speak only of commercial nations, and, of course, do not 
include France), it may infallibly be assumed that England par- 
takes more largely of the advantages of that traffic than any other 
state ; and the same rule will continue to apply to the increase 
of the commerce of the world, in whatever quarter it may be, so 
long as the British people are distinguished by their industry, 
energy and ingenuity, and provided that their rulers shall keep 
pace in wise reforms and severe economy with the governments 
of their rivals. It follows, then, that, with reference to trade, 
there can be no ground of apprehension from Russia. If that 
people were to attempt to exclude all foreign traffic, they would 
enter at once upon the high road to barbarism, from which career 
there is no danger threatened to rich and civilized nations ; if, on 
the other hand, that state continued to pursue a system favorable 
to foreign trade, then England would be found at Constantinople, 
as she has already been at St. Petersburg, reaping the greatest 
harvest of riches and power, from the augmentation of Russian 
imports. 

By far the greater proportion of the writers and speakers upon 
the subject of the power of Russia either do not understand or 
lose sight of the all-important question, What is the true source 
of national greatness ? The path by which alone modern empires 
can hope to rise to supreme power and grandeur (would that we 
could impress this sentiment upon the mind of every statesman 
in Europe !) is that of labor and improvement. They who, point- 
ing to the chart of Russia, shudder at her expanse of impenetra- 
ble forests, her wastes of eternal snow, her howling wildernesses, 
frowning mountains, and solitary rivers, — or they who stand aghast 
at her boundless extent of fertile but uncultivated steppes, her 
millions of serfs, and her towns the abodes of poverty and filth, — 
know nothing of the true origin, in modern and future times, of 
national power and greatness. This question admits of an appro- 



RUSSIA. 31 

priate illustration, by patting the names of a couple of heroes of 
Russian aggression and violence in contrast with two of their 
contemporaries, the champions of improvement in England. At 
the very period when Potemkin and Suwarrow were engaged in 
effecting their important Russian conquests in Poland and the 
Crimea, and whilst those monsters of carnage were filling the 
world with the lustre of their fame, and lighting up one-half of 
Europe with the conflagrations of war, two obscure individuals, 
the one an optician, and the other a barber, both equally dis- 
regarded by the chroniclers of the day, were quietly gaining 
victories in the realms of science, which have produced a more 
abundant harvest of wealth and power to their native country 
than has been acquired by all the wars of Russia during the last 
two centuries. Those illustrious commanders in the war of im- 
provement, Watt and Arkwright, with a band of subalterns, — 
the thousand ingenious and practical discoverers who have fol- 
lowed in their train, — have, with their armies of artisans, con- 
ferred a power and consequence upon England, springing from 
successive triumphs in the physical sciences and the mechanical 
arts, and wholly independent of territorial increase, compared 
with which, all that she owes to the evanescent exploits of her 
warrior-heroes shrinks into insignificance and obscurity. If we 
look into futurity, and speculate upon the probable career of one 
of these inventions, may we not with safety predict that the 
steam-engine — the perfecting of which belongs to our own age, 
and which even now is exerting an influence in the four quarters 
of the globe — will at no distant day produce moral and physical 
changes, all over the world, of a magnitude and permanency 
surpassing the effects of all the wars and conquests which have 
convulsed mankind since the beginning of time ? England owes 
to the peaceful exploits of Watt and Arkwright, and not to the 
deeds of Nelson and Wellington, her commerce, which now 
extends to every corner of the earth ; and which casts into com- 
parative obscurity, by the grandeur and extent of its operations, 
the peddling ventures of Tyre, Carthage and Venice, confined 
within the limits of an island sea. 

If we were to trace, step by step, the opposite careers of 



32 RUSSIA. 

aggrandizement, to which we can only thus hastily glance — of 
England, pursuing the march of improvement within the area of 
four of her counties, by exploring the recesses of her mines, by 
constructing canals, docks and railroads, by her mechanical inven- 
tions, and by the patience and ingenuity of her manufacturers in 
adapting their fabrics to meet the varying wants and tastes of 
every habitable latitude of the earth's surface; and of Russia, 
adhering to her policy of territorial conquest, by despoiling of 
provinces the empires of Turkey, Persia and Sweden, by sub- 
jugating in unwilling bondage the natives of Georgia and Circassia, 
and by seizing with robber hand the soil of Poland, — if we were 
to trace these opposite careers of aggrandizement, what should 
we find to be the relative consequences to these two empires ? 
England, with her steam-engine and spinning-frame, has erected 
the standard of improvement, around which every nation of the 
world has already prepared to rally ; she has, by the magic of 
her machinery, united forever two remote hemispheres in the 
bonds of peace, by placing Europe and America in absolute and 
inextricable dependence on each other. England's industrious 
classes, through the energy of their commercial enterprise, are, 
at this moment, influencing the civilization of the whole world, 
by stimulating the labor, exciting the curiosity, and promoting 
the taste for refinement, of barbarous communities, and, above all, 
by acquiring and teaching to surrounding nations the beneficent 
attachment to peace. Such are the moral effects of improvement 
in Britain, against which Russia can oppose comparatively little, 
but the example of violence, to which humanity points as a beacon 
to warn society from evil. And if we refer to the physical effects, 
— if, for the sake of convincing minds which do not recognize 
the far more potent moral influences, we descend to a comparison 
of mere brute forces, — we find still greater superiority resulting 
from ingenuity and labor. The manufacturing districts alone — 
even the four counties of England, comprising Lancashire, York- 
shire, Cheshire, and Staffordshire — could, at any moment, by 
means of the wealth drawn, by the skill and industry of its pop- 
ulation, from the natural resources of this comparative speck of 
territory, combat with success the whole Russian empire ! Liver- 



RUSSIA. 



38 



pool and Hull, with their navies, and Manchester, Leeds and 
Birmingham, with their capitals, could blockade, within the waters 
of Cronstadt, the entire Russian marine, and annihilate the com- 
merce of St. Petersburg! And, further, if ' we suppose that, 
during the next thirty years, Russia, adhering to her system of 
territorial aggrandizement, were to swallow up successively her 
neighbors Persia and Turkey, whilst England, which we have 
imagined to comprise only the area of four counties, still persevered 
in her present career of mechanical ingenuity, the relative forces 
would, at the end of that time, be yet more greatly in favor of 
the peaceful and industrious empire. This mere speck on the 
ocean — without colonies, which are but the costly appendage * 
of an aristocratic government — without wars, which have ever 
been but another aristocratic mode of plundering and oppressing 
commerce — would, with only a few hundred square leagues of 
surface, by means of the wealth which by her arts and industry 
she had accumulated, be the arbitress of the destiny of Russia, 
with its millions of square miles of territory. Liverpool and 
Hull, with their thousands of vessels, would be in a condition to 
dictate laws to the possessor of one-fourth part of the surface of 
the globe : they would then be enabled to blockade Russia in the 
Sea of Marmora, as they could now do in the Gulf of Finland — 
to deny her the freedom of the seas, to deprive her proud nobles 
of every foreign commodity and luxury, and degrade them, amidst 
their thousands of serfs, to the barbarous state of their ancestors 

* Some people contend that our colonies are profitable to us, because they 
consume our manufactures ; although it is notorious that they do not buy a 
single commodity from us -which they could procure cheaper elsewhere, whilst 
we take frequently articles from them of an inferior quality and at a dearer 
rate than we could purchase at from other countries. But what do the 
advocates of the present system say to the fact, that we are at this moment 
paying thirty per cent, more for the colonial productions consumed in our 
houses than is paid for similar articles, ■procured from our own colonies, too, by 
the people of the continent 1 A workman in London, an artisan in Man- 
chester, or a farmer of Wales, buys his Jamaica sugar and coffee thirty per 
cent, dearer than the native of Switzerland or America, perhaps five hundred 
miles distant from a port, and whose governments never owned a colony ! 
But, it will be said, this is necessary taxation to meet the interest of the 
debt. And what have we to show for the national debt, but our colonies 1 



34 RUSSIA. 

of the ancient Rousniacs, and to confine her Czar in his splendid 
prison of Constantinople.^ If such are the miracles of the mind, 
such the superiority of improvement over the efforts of brute 
force and violence, is not the writer of these pages justified in 
calling the attention of his countrymen elsewhere t to the progress 

* The amount of our exports of cotton goods, of which industry Manchester 
is the centre, is double that of the exports of every kind from all the Russian 
empire ; the shipping entering Liverpool annually exceeds the tonnage of 
St. Petersburg eight-fold ! These facts, which we can only thus allude to 
with epigrammatic brevity, convey forcibly to the reflecting mind an impres- 
sion of the mighty influence which now slumbers in the possession of the 
commercial and manufacturing portions of the community. IIow little they 
understand the extent of their power may be acknowledged, when we recol- 
lect that this great and independent order of society (for the manufacturing 
interest of England is, from the nature of its position with reference to 
foreign states, more independent of British agriculture than the latter is of 
it) is deprived of the just reward of its ingenious labor, by the tyranny of 
the corn-laws ; that it possesses no representation, and consequently no direct 
influence, in one of the Houses of Parliament, — the members of which, to a 
man, are interested in the manufacture and high price of food, — and that it 
still lies under the stigma of feudal laws, that confer rights, privileges and 
exemptions, upon landed possessions, which are denied to personal property. 

■f Since the publication of "England, Ireland, and America," the author 
has had an opportunity of visiting the United States, and of taking a hasty 
glance of the American people ; and his ocular experience of the country 
has confirmed him in the views he put forth in that pamphlet. Looking to 
the natural endowments of the North American continent, — as superior to 
Europe as the latter is to Africa, — with an almost immeasurable extent of 
river navigation, its boundless expanse of the most fertile soil in the world, 
and its inexhaustible mines of coal, iron, lead, &c, — looking at these, and 
remembering the quality and position of a people universally instructed and 
perfectly free, and possessing, as a consequence of these, a new-born energy 
and vitality very far surpassing the character of any nation of the Old World, 
the writer reiterates the moral of his former work, by declaring his convic- 
tion that it is from the west, rather than from the east, that danger to the 
supremacy of Great Britain is to be apprehended ; that it is from the silent 
and peaceful rivalry of American commerce, the growth of its manufactures, 
its rapid progress in internal improvements, the superior education of its peo- 
ple, and their economical and pacific government, — that it is from these, and 
not from the barbarous policy or the impoverishing armaments of Russia, that 
the grandeur of our commercial and national prosperity is endangered. And 
the writer stakes his reputation upon the prediction, that, in less than twenty years, 
this will be the sentiment of the people of England generally ; and that the same con- 
viction will be forced upon the government of the country. 



RUSSIA. 



35 



of another people, whose rapid adoption of the discoveries of the 
a<*e, whose mechanical skill and unrivalled industry in all the 
arts of life, — as exemplified in their thousands of miles of rail- 
roads, their hundreds of steamboats, their ship-building, manufac- 
turing, and patent inventions, — whose system of universal in- 
struction, and, above all, whose inveterate attachment to peace, 
all proclaim America, by her competition in improvements, to be 
destined to affect more vitally than Russia by her aggrandizement 
of territory, the future interests of Great Britain ? 

If, then, England, by promoting the peaceful industry of her 
population, is pursuing a course which shall conduct her to a far 
higher point of moral and physical power than Russia can hope 
to reach by the opposite career of war and conquest, we must 
seek for some other motive than that of danger to ourselves, for 
the hostilities in which we are urged, by so many writers and 
speakers, to engage with that northern people. 

The great grievance, indeed, with us, is one which, all things 
borne in remembrance, displays quite as much naivete in the 
character of the British people as is consistent with a moderate 



The writer has been surprised at the little knowledge that exists here with 
respect to the mineral resources of America. Few are aware that in nothing 
does that country surpass Europe so much as in its rich beds of coal. By a 
government survey of the State of Pennsylvania, it appears that it contains 
twenty thousand square miles of coal, with iron in proportion. This in one 
state only ! whilst the whole of the Mississippi valley is more or less enriched 
with this invaluable combustible. Several of his neighbors have been aston- 
ished by the inspection of a specimen of bituminous coal, which the writer 
procured from a pit at Brownsville, on the Monongahela river, above Pitts- 
ourg, and which is pronounced equal to the very best qualities produced 
from the mines in Yorkshire. The mode of working the pits is, to drive an 
adit into the sloping banks of the navigable rivers, and, at a few yards dis- 
tance, the coal stratum is usually found, six feet in thickness ; and, as the 
miner is always enabled to work in an upright posture, one man will fre- 
quently produce as much as one hundred loads a day. The steamboat in 
which the author went from Brownsville to Pittsburg stopped at one of 
those pits' mouths, and took in a supply of fuel, which was charged at the 
rate of about three farthings a bushel. These are facts which bear more 
directly upon the future destinies of this country than the marriages of 
orowned heads in Portugal, the movements of savage forces in Russia, and 
similar proceedings, to which we attach so much importance. 



36 RUSSIA. 

share of self-knowledge. The Russians are accused by us oi 
being an aggrandizing people ! From the day of Pultowa down 
to the time of the passage of the Balkan, — say the orators, jour- 
nalists, reviewers, and authors, — the government of St. Peters- 
burg has been incessantly addicted to picking and stealing. But, 
in the mean time, has England been idle ? If, during the lust 
century, Russia has plundered Sweden, Poland, Turkey and 
Persia, until she has grown unwieldy with the extent of her 
spoils, Great Britain has, in the same period, robbed, — no, that 
would be an impolite phase, — " has enlarged the bounds of his 
majesty's dominions " at the expense of France, Holland, and 
Spain. It would be false logic, and just as unsound morality, to 
allow the Muscovite to justify his derelictions of honesty by an 
appeal to our example ; but, surely, we, who are staggering under 
the embarrassing weight of our colonies, with one foot upon 
the rock of Gibraltar and the other at the Cape of Good Hope, 
— with Canada, Australia, and the peninsula of India, forming, 
Cerberus-like, the heads of our monstrous empire, — and with 
the hundred minor acquisitions scattered so widely over the 
earth's surface as to present an unanswerable proof of our whole- 
some appetite for boundless dominion, — surely, we are not 
exactly the nation to preach homilies to other people in favor of 
the national observance of the eighth commandment ! * If zee 
find all these possessions to be burdensome, rather than profitable, 

* Extract from Mr. T. Attwood' 's speech, House of Commons, July 9, 1833. — 
" The House will recollect that, for two centuries, Russia has been gradually 
encroaching upon the territories of all her neighbors ; for the last hundred 
and fifty years, her progress has been general on all sides, — east, west, 
north, and south. A few years ago, she attacked Sweden and seized upon 
Finland. Then she attacked Persia, and added some most important prov- 
inces to her empire in the south. Not content with this, she appropriated, 
in 1792, a great part of Poland ; and it is but lately she has attacked Turkey. 
Thus, for years, she has gone on in her course of aggrandizement, in defiance 
of the laws of God and man ! " If, for Sweden, Persia and Poland, we sub- 
stitute France, Spain and Holland, and if instead of Turkey we put the 
Burmese empire, how admirably the above description would apply to an- 
other nation, of whose unprofitable aggrandizements in Europe, Asia, Africa 
and America, Mr. Attwood may read a few particulars in Mr. Montgomery 
Martin's "History of the British Colonies," — five volumes, octavo ! 



RUSSIA. 37 

— if, in common with all marauders, we discover, by experience, 
that the acquisitions of fraud or violence confer nothing but dis- 
appointment and loss, — we shall not improve our case by going 
to war to prevent Russia pursuing the same course, which will 
inevitably conduct her to a similar fate, where the same retribu- 
tion, which will ever accompany an infringement of the moral 
laws, awaits her. England and Russia, in the act of scolding 
each other on the reciprocal accusation of unjust aggrandizement, 
present an appearance so ludicrous that it forcibly recalls to our 
recollection the quarrel between the two worthies of the Beggars' 
Opera, the termination of which scene we recommend to the 
imitation of the diplomatists of the two courts. Like Lockit and 
Peachum, the British lion and the Russian bear, instead of tear- 
ing one another, had better hug and be friends, — "Brother 
bruin, brother bruin, we are both in the wrong." 

Lord Dudley Stuart (whose zeal, we fear without knowledge, 
upon the subject of Poland, and whose prejudice against Russia, 
have led him to occupy so much of the public time, uselessly, upon 
the question before us), in the course of his long speech in the 
House of Commons (February 19th), upon introducing the subject 
of Russian encroachments, dwelt, at considerable length, upon the 
lust of aggrandizement by which he argued that the government 
of St. Petersburg was so peculiarly distinguished ; and he brought 
forward, at considerable cost of labor, details of its successive con- 
quests of territory during the last century. Where the human mind 
is swayed by any passion, of however amiable a nature, or where 
the feelings are allowed to predominate over the reason, in inves- 
tigating a subject which appeals only to the understanding, it will 
generally happen that the judgment is defective. We attribute 
to the well-Jinown fervor of Lord Stuart's sentiments upon Russia 
and Poland the circumstance that, during the fortnight which he 
must have employed in collecting the dates of the several treaties 
by which the former empire has wrested its possessions from 
neighboring states, the thought never once occurred to him, — a 
reflection which would have entered the head of almost any other 
man of sense, who sat down coolly to consider the subject, -—that, 
during the last hundred years, England has, for every square 
4 



88 RUSSIA. 

league of territory annexed to Russia, by force, violence or fraud, 
appropriated to herself three. Such would have been the reflec- 
tion which flashed across the mind of a statesman who sat down. 
dispassionately, to investigate the subject of Russian policy ; and. 
it must have prevented him, by the consciousness of the egotism 
and arrogance, — nay, the downright effrontery^ of such a 
course, — from bringing an accusation against another people 
which recoils with three-fold t criminality upon ourselves. Nor. 
if we enter upon a comparison of the cases, should we find that 
the means whereby Great Britain has augmented her possessions 
are a whit less reprehensible than those which have been resorted 
to by the northern power for a similar purpose. If the English 
writer calls down indignation upon the conquerors of the Ukraine, 
Finland and the Crimea, may not Russian historians conjure up 
equally painful reminiscences upon the subjects of Gibraltar, 
the Cape, and Hindostan? Every one conversant with the 
history of the last century will remember that England has, dur- 
ing almost all that period, maintained an ascendency at sea ; and 
colonies, which were in times past regarded as the chief source 
of our wealth and power, being pretty generally the fruits of 
every succeeding war, the nation fell into a passion for conquest, 
under the delusive impression that those distant dependencies 
were, in spite of the debt contracted in seizing them, profitable 

* We allude to the nation, — the epithet cannot be applied to his lordship, 
f We speak after due investigation and calculation, and not at random, 
when we allege that England has acquired three times as much territory as 
Russia during the last century. The Cape is computed at half a million of 
square miles, Canada at half as much more, India and New Holland will be 
found each with an area almost as large as that of the cultivable portion of 
Europe ; not to mention other acquisitions, too numerous to be described 
within the limits of a pamphlet ! 
Progressive augmentation of the Russian empire : 

Sq. milss. Population. 

At the accession of Peter I., 1689, 2,980,000 15,000,000 

At his death, 1725, 3,150,000 20,000,000 

At the accession of Catherine II.. 1763, 3,700,000 25,000,000 

At her death, 1796, 3,850,000 36,000,000 

At the death of Alexander, 1825, 4,250,000 58,000,000 

Malte Brim's Ocography, vol. vi. p. 622. 



Russia. oy 

acquisitions to the mother country. Hence, the British govern- 
ment was always eager for hostilities, the moment an excuse 
presented itself, .with one of the maritime continental states 
possessing colonies ; and of the several conflicts in which we have 
been involved since the peace of Ryswick, at least three out of 
four have been consequent upon declarations of war made by 
England.* Russia, on the contrary, has been nearly surrounded 

* The policy of England has been aggressive at all times ; but we are far 
from exulting in the fact of having always dealt the first blow, as Mr. 
Thomas Attwood, of Birmingham, would wish us to do, when he tells us, exult- 
ingly, in the House of Commons, whilst speaking of Russia (see Mirror of 
Parliament, 1833, p. 2874) — "We, the people of England, who have never 
known what fear is ; who have been accustomed, for seven hundred years, to 
give a blow first and to receive an apology afterwards : we, who have borne 
the British lion triumphant through every quarter of the world, and are now 
forced to submit to insults from this base and brutal, and this in reality weak 
power, — a power which, from its mere physical force, contrives, like a great 
bully, to intimidate the moral strength of Europe ! " Now, putting aside 
the exquisitely ludicrous charge of bullying, alleged against Russia by one 
who boasts that, for seven hundred years, we "have struck the first blow," 
and which reminds us of the sc«ne between Sir Anthony Absolute and his " in- 
solent, impudent, overbearing " son Jack, we have here a specimen of that 
sort of sentiment which horses or buffaloes, if they could make speeches, 
might very properly indulge in, but which is derogatory to the rank of 
reasoning beings, who possess intellectual faculties in lieu of hoofs and 
horns. 

Mr. Attwood is an advocate for war and paper money, — the curse and 

of the working classes ! "What do the Birmingham mechanics say to tbe 

following picture of the effects of the last war upon the prosperity of their 

town 1 The same results would follow a like cause, should a war be entered 

into to gratify their favorite representative. 

Extract from Mr. Grey's (now Lord Grey) speech on the state of the nation, March 
25, 1801. See Hansard's Parliamentary History, vol. xxxv. p. 1064. 

" I come now to speak of the internal state of the country. Two hundred 
and seventy millions have been added to our national debt, exclusive of 
imperial and other loans, and of the reduction effected by the sinking fund ; 
and yet we are told, by the ex-ministers, that they leave the country in a 
flourishing situation ! I ask any man whether, from diminished comforts or 
from positive distress, he does not feel this declaration an insult. Ask the 
ruined manufacturers of Yorkshire, Manchester, and Birmingham ; ask the 
starving inhabitants of London and Westminster. In some parts of York- 
shire, formerly the most flourishing, it appears, from an authentic paper 



40 RUSSIA. 

by the territory of barbarous nations, one of which* — by the 
very nature of its institutions ', warlike and aggressive, — was. 
up to the middle of the last century, prompted, by a conscious- 
ness of strength, and since then by a haughty ignorance of its 
degeneracy, to court hostilities with its neighbors ; and the con- 
sequence of this and other causes is, that, in the majority of 
cases, where Russia has been engaged in conflicts with her neigh- 
bors, she will be found to have had a war of self-defence for her 
justification. If such are the facts, — if England has, for the 
sake of the spoil which would accrue to her superiority of naval 
strength, provoked war, with all its horrors, from weak and 
unwilling enemies, whilst Russia, on the contrary, with ill-defined 
boundaries, has been called upon to repel the attacks of fierce 
and lawless nations, — surely, we must admit, unless pitiably 
blinded by national vanity, that the gain (if such there be), 
resulting from these contentions, is not less unholy in the former 
than the latter case ; and that the title by which the sovereign of 
St. Petersburg holds his conquered possessions is just as good, at 
least, as that by which the government, of St. James' asserts the 
right to ours. In the case of Poland, to which we shall again 
have to recur by and by, there was, indeed, a better title than 
that of the sword, but which, amidst the clamor of fine sentiments, 
palmed by philanthropic authors and speakers upon the much- 
abused public mind, about Russian aggressions in that quarter, 
has never, we believe, been mentioned by any orator, reviewer, 
or newspaper writer, of the present day. " The republic of Po- 
land " (we quote the words of Malte Brun) " had been chiefly 
composed of provinces wrested from Russia, or from the Great 
Dukes of Galitch, Vladimir, Volynski, Polotzk, and particularly 
Kiow, by Boleslas the Victorious, Casimir the Great, Kings of 

which I hold in my hand, that the poor rates have increased from five hun- 
dred and twenty-two pounds to six thousand pounds a year, though the 
whole rack-rent of the parish does not exceed five thousand six hundred 
pounds. In Birmingham, I know, from undoubted authority, there are near eleven 
thousand persons who receive parochial relief, though the whole number of the inhab- 
itants cannot exceed eighty thousand, — and this of a town reckoned one of the most 
prosperous in England." 
* Turkey. 



RUSSIA. 41 

Poland, and by Gedirnir, Great Duke of Lithuania. Thus, the 
nobles were the only persons interested in the defence of prov- 
inces whose inhabitants were estranged from the Poles, although 
they had remained under their government from the time 
of the conquest. All the peasants of Podolia and Volhynia 
were Rousniacs, or Little Russians, ignorant of the language or 
customs of Poland; which may partly account for the success 
of the Russians in their invasions of the Polish republic. The 
Poles, who were persecuted by intolerant Catholic priests, who 
disregarded the constitutions of the Polish diet, abandoned their 
lords without reluctance, and received willingly their countrymen 
the Russian soldiers, who spoke the same dialect as themselves. 
The division of Poland was, on the part of Russia, not so much 
a lawless invasion as an act of reprisal on former invaders. Had 
the leading historical facts been explained in the Russian mani- 
festo which was published in 1772, so much obloquy might not 
have attached to the conduct of that people." 

Leaving, however, the question of title, — which, whatever may 
be the conflicting opinions of moralists and legists, is, in the case 
of national tenures, usually decided according to the power of the 
possessor to hold in fee, — we shall be next reminded of the great 
benefits which British conquests have conferred upon remote and 
uncivilized nations, particularly in the example of India; and 
we shall be called upon to show in what manner Russia has com- 
pensated for her violent seizures of independent territory, by any 
similar amelioration of the condition of its people. Before doing 
so, yje shall premise that we do not offer it as a justification of 
the policy of Russia. If, by chance, the plunderer makes good 
use of his spoil, that is not a vindication of robbery ; and because 
the serf of Poland, the savage of Georgia, and the ryot of Ben- 
gal, enjoy better laws under the sway of Russia and Great 
Britain than they formerly possessed beneath their own govern- 
ments, to argue that, therefore, these two powers stand morally 
justified in having subjugated, with fire and sword, those three 
less civilized states, would be to contend that America, instead of 
contenting herself with imparting improvements to the unenlight- 
ened communities of Europe, by the peaceful but irresistible 
4# 



42 RUSSIA. 

means of her high example, is warranted in invading Naples or 
Spain, for the purpose of rescuing their people from the thral- 
dom of monarchy, or marching to Rome, and, in place of the 
Pope, installing a President in the palace of the Vatican ! * It 
is, then, with no view to the justification of war and violence, but 
solely for the purpose of answering, by a few facts of unques- 
tionable authenticity, those spurious appeals to our sympathies, 
based upon the false assumption of Russian aggrandizement being 
but another term for the spread of barbarism and the extinction 
of freedom and civilization, that we glance at the proofs which 
are afforded in every direction of the vast moral, political and 
commercial advantages that have been bestowed upon the coun- 
tries annexed by conquest to that empire. 

The writers who have attempted to lead public opinion upon the 
subject have not scrupled to claim the interposition of our gov- 
ernment with Russia, for the purpose of restoring to freedom and 
indepeiidence those Caucasian tribes to which we have before 
alluded, as having fallen under the partial dominion of Russia. 
Their previous state of freedom may be appreciated, when we 
recollect that, within our own time, a fierce war was waged 
between the most powerful of these nations t and the Turks, in 
consequence of their having refused to continue to supply the 
harems of the latter with a customary annual tribute of the hand- 
somest of their daughters ; offering, however, at the same time, in lieu, 
a yearly contribution in money. We have already alluded to the 
emancipating influence of Russian intervention over the commerce 
of the Black Sea, the only channel by which the civilizing inter- 

* Yet there are perverse and purblind moralists, who can see proofs of 
God's interposition in every atrocious crime that happens, in its consequences, 
to carry some alloy of good ; which merely proves that the great Ruler of 
the universe has, in spite of us, set his fiat against the predominancy of evil. A 
clergyman — we believe Dr. Buchanan — of high attainments and strict evan- 
gelical doctrines, who passed many years in India, proposed a prize essay, on 
his return to England, as to the probable designs of Providence in placing the Indian 
empire in the hands of Great Britain ! This, from a contemporary of Warren 
Hastings, is little less blasphemous than the Te Dexirns sung by Catherine 
for the victories of Ismail and Warsaw. 

f The Georgians. 



RUSSIA. 43 

course with commercial nations can extend to these unenlightened 
regions; and we have been told by the very highest authority,* 
that their trade, agriculture, and social improvement, already 
attest the beneficent effects of this improved policy. The follow- 
ing extract from a work t of great and deserved reputation gives 
the most recent information upon the countries under considera- 
tion ; and it conveys, perhaps, all that could be said upon the 
effects of Russian aggrandizement in these quarters : " The 
southern declivity of these mountains is highly fertile, abounding 
in forests and fountains, orchards, vineyards, corn-fields and 
pastures, in rich variety. Grapes, chestnuts, figs, &c, grow spon- 
taneously in these countries ; as well as grain of every descrip- 
tion — rice, cotton, hemp, &c. But the inhabitants are barbarous 
and indolent. They consist of mountain tribes, remarkably fero- 
cious, whose delight is in war, and with whom robbery is a 
hereditary trade ; and their practice is to descend from their fast- 
nesses and to sweep everything away from the neighboring plains, 
— not only grain and cattle, but men, women and children, who 
are carried into captivity. The names of the different tribes are, 
the Georgians, Abassians, Lesghians, Ossetes, Circassians, Tasch- 
kents, Khists, Ingooshes, Charabulaks, Tartars, Armenians, Jews, 
and in some parts wandering Arabs. They are mostly barbarous 
in their habits, and idolatrous in their religion, worshipping stars^ 
mountains, rocks and trees. There are among them Greek and 
Armenian Christians, Mahometans, and Jews. Several of the 
tribes, particularly the Circassians and Georgians, are accounted 
the handsomest people in the world ; and the females are much 
sought after by the Eastern monarchs, to be immured in their 
harems. The inhabitants amount to about nine hundred thou- 
sand, who are partly ruled by petty sovereigns, and partly by 
their seniors. The most famous are the Lesghians, who inhabit 
the eastern regions, and, living by plunder, are the terror of the 
Armenians, Persians, Turks, and Georgians. Their sole occupa- 
tion is war, and their services can at any time be purchased by 

* M'Culloch — Commercial Dictionary, 7, p. 1108. 

f Encyclopaedia Britannica, new edition, now publishing, vol. vi. p. 250 — 
art. Caucasus. 



44 RUSSIA. 

every prince in the neighborhood, for a supply of provisions and 
a tew silver roubles. Since the extension of the Russian empire 
in this quarter, many of these mountain tribes have been restrained 
in their predatory habits. Under the iron rule of that poiverful 
state, they have been taught to tremble and obey ; military posts 
have been dispersed over the country, fortr esses have been erected, 
towns have arisen, and commerce and agriculture begin slowly to 
supplant the barbarous pursuits of war and plunder, in which 
these mountain tribes have been hitherto engaged* But the work 
of civilization in these wild regions is still slow ; it is difficult to 
reclaim the people from their long-settled habits of violence and 
disorder ; and it would not be safe for any traveller to pass alone 
through these countries, where he would be exposed to robbery 
and murder." 

Another ground of ceaseless jealousy, on the part of our philo- 
Turkish and Russo-maniac writers, has been discovered in the 
recent intervention of the Russian diplomatists in the affairs of 
Wallachia and Moldavia. The condition of these two Christian 
provinces, situated on the right bank of the Danube, and so fre- 
quently the scenes of desolating wars between Turkey and her 
neighbors, has been, perhaps, more pitiably deplorable than the 
lot of any other portion of this misgoverned empire. The hospo- 
•dars or governors of Moldavia and Wallachia were changed every 
year at the will of the Sultan, and each brought a fresh retinue 
of greedy dependants, armed with absolute power, to prey upon 
the defenceless inhabitants. These appointments, as is the case 
now with every pachalic, were openly sold at Constantinople to 
the highest bidder ; and the hospodars were left to recover from 
their subjects the price of the purchase, to pay an annual tribute 
to the Porte, which was usually levied in kind, giving scope for 

* Yet the most active and persevering assailant of Russia, a writer to 
whom we alluded in the beginning of this pamphlet, does not scruple to 
invoke the aid of these hordes against their present rulers : " The Georgian 
provinces would instantly throw off the yoke ; even the Wallachians, Mol- 
davians, and Bessarabians, would join in the general impulse ; the millions 
of brave and independent Circassians would pour across the Couban and 
spread over the Crimea — and where would Russia be V* — See pamphlet, "Eng- 
land, France, Russia and Turkey." 



RUSSIA. 45 

the most arbitrary exactions ; and, besides, appease the favorites 
at court, who might otherwise intrigue against them. Need we 
be surprised that, under such a state of things, the population 
decreased, agriculture was neglected, and commerce and the arts 
of civilized existence were unknown in the finest countries of the 
world ? Not more than one-sixth * part of the land of Walla- 
chia is at present cultivated ; and Mr. Wilkinson, the late Eng- 
lish consul, estimated that, without any extraordinary exertion, 
the existing population of Wallachia and Moldavia might, if 
property were secured, raise twice the quantity of corn and 
double the number of cattle now produced in those provinces. 
The treaty of 1829, between Russia and Turkey, stipulates that 
the hospodars shall be elected for life, and that no tribute in kind 
shall be levied ; it also engages that a quarantine shall be placed 
on the Danube frontier, thus separating these provinces from the 
rest of Turkey. This case of intervention is appealed to as a 
proof of Russian ambition ; and Lord Stuart, in the course of 
his speech before alluded to, complains that, by this policy, its 
power is increased in those quarters. Admitting that Russia 
interferes in behalf of those unhappy countries with no loftier 
aim than an augmentation of her influence, and that the result 
will be the separation of the Christian provinces of Moldavia and 
Wallachia from the rest of the Turkish territory, — nay, admit- 
ting that this should prove inimical to the interests of England 
(though the supposition is absurd enough, since whatever tends to 
advance the civilization and augment the wealth of any part of 
the world must be beneficial, in the end, to us, who are the greatest 
commercial and manufacturing people), still the English nation 
would, we sincerely hope, feel a disinterested gratitude to the 
power which, by its merciful interposition, has rescued this suf- 
fering Christian community from the cruel, remorseless, and har- 
assing grasp of its Mahometan oppressors. 

Probably it will not be deemed necessary that we should trace 
the effects of Russian government over the territories torn at 
different epochs from the Persian empire : if, however, we did not 

* The clergy, from being exempt from taxation, have become possessed of 
a third of the soil. 



46 RUSSIA. 

feel warranted in assuming that even those of our intelli- 
gent readers who may be the most inimical to the power of the 
Czar will readily admit the superiority of the organized despot- 
ism of St. Petersburg over the anarchic tyranny of Teheran, 
we should be prepared to afford proofs, from the works of travel- 
lers themselves hostile to Russian interests, of the rapid amelio- 
rations that have succeeded to the extension of this colossal 
empire in those regions. Still less shall we be called upon to 
pause to point out the benefits that must ensue from the annexa- 
tion of the Crimea to the dominions of the Autocrat. Those 
wandering tribes of Crim Tartars, who exchanged, for the service 
of the Empress Catherine, the barbarous government of the 
descendants of Genghis Khan, and who received, as the first 
fruits of a Christian administration, the freedom of the commerce 
of the world, by the opening of the navigation of the Black Sea, 
which immediately succeeded to the encroachments of Russia in 
that quarter, will gradually but certainly acquire the taste for 
trade; and, as population increases and towns arise, they will 
abandon, of necessity, their migratory habits, and become the 
denizens of civilized society. 

We shall, for the sake of brevity, restrict ourselves to the fol- 
lowing short passage, from the highest authority that can be con- 
sulted, upon the character of Russian policy towards her latest 
maritime acquisition on the side of the Baltic. " Finland," says 
Malte Brun, " was averse to the union with Sweden, and has lost 
none of its privileges by being incorporated with Russia : it is 
still governed by Swedish laws ; schools have been established 
during the last twenty years, and the peasantry are in every 
respect as well protected as in Sweden."^ 

* Vol. vi. p. 499, Malte Brim's Geography 



CHAPTER II. 

POLAND, RUSSIA, AND ENGLAND. 

Coktents. — Protest against Russian Tyranny. — True Statement of the 
Question as to British Interference. — Distinction between the Polish Aris- 
tocracy and Polish People. — Tyranny of the Nobles and miserable Con- 
dition of the People before the Partition. — Improved Condition under the 
Russian Government. — True Cause of the Revolt of 1830. — The Incite- 
ments of Public Writers and Speakers to a War with Russia considered. — 
Lord Dudley Stuart. — Military Weakness and Poverty of Russia. — Her 
Liability to Blockade by a small Marine Force. — Weakness the necessary 
result of too extended Dominion. — No Pretence, consistent with Common- 
sense, for England going to War with Russia. 

The foregoing statements, with reference to portions of the 
Russian acquisitions, founded upon unquestionable authority, are 
calculated to awaken some doubts as to the genuineness of those 
writings and speeches, upon the faith of which we are called upon 
to subscribe to the orthodox belief in the barbarizing tendency 
of all the encroachments of that country ; but these facts are un- 
important, when we next have to refer to another of its conquests, 
and to bring before our readers Poland, upon which has been 
lavished more false sentiment, deluded sympathy, and amiable 
ignorance, than on any other subject of the present age. This is 
a topic, however, upon which it behoves us to enter with circum- 
spection, since we shall have not only to encounter the preposses- 
sions of the ardent and sincere devotee, but also to meet the 
uncandid weapons of bigotry and cant. Let us, therefore, as the 
only sure defence at all times against such antagonists, clothe our 
arguments from the armory of reason in the panoply of truth. We 
will, moreover, reiterate, for we will not be misunderstood, that it 
is no part of our purpose to attempt to justify the conduct of the 



48 RUSSIA. 

partitioning powers towards the Poles. On the contrary, we will 
join in the verdict of murder, robbery, treason, perjury and base- 
ness, which every free nation and all honest men must award to 
Russia, Prussia and Austria, for their undissembled and unmiti- 
gated wickedness on that occasion ; nay, we will go further, and 
admit that all the infamy with which Burke, Sheridan and Fox, 
labored, by the force of eloquent genius, to overwhelm the emis- 
saries of British violence in India, was justly earned, at the very 
same period, by the minions of Russian despotism in Poland. 
But our question is, not the conduct of the conquerors, but the 
present as compared with the former condition of the conquered. 
The first is but an abstract and barren subject for the disquisition 
of the moralist ; the latter appeals to our sympathies, because it 
is pregnant with the destinies of millions of our fellow-creatures. 
Of how trifling consequence it must be to the practical-minded 
and humane people of Great Britain, or to the world at large, 
whether Poland be governed by a king of this dynasty or of 
that, — whether he be lineally descended from Boleslas the Great, 
or of the line of the Jagellons, — contrasted with the importance 
of the inquiries as to the social and political condition of its peo- 
ple, — whether they be as well or worse governed, clothed, fed and 
lodged, in the present day, as compared with any former period ; 
whether the mass of the people be elevated in the scale of moral 
and religious beings ; whether the country enjoys a smaller or 
larger amount of the blessings of peace ; or whether the laws for 
the protection of life and property are more or less justly admin- 
istered. These are the all-important inquiries about which we 
busy ourselves ; and it is to cheat us of our stores of philanthropy, 
by an appeal to the sympathy with which we regard those vital 
interests of a whole people, that the declaimers and writers upon 
the subject invariably appeal to us in behalf of the oppressed 
and enslaved Polish nation ; carefully obscuring, amidst the cloud 
of epithets about " ancient freedom," " national independence," 
u glorious republic," and such like, the fact, that, previously to 
the dismemberment, the term nation implied only the nobles ; 
that, down to the partition of their territory, about nineteen out 
of every twenty of the inhabitants were slaves, possessing no 



Russia. 49 

rights, civil or political ; that about one in every twenty was a 
nobleman ; and that this body of nobles formed the very worst 
aristocracy of ancient or modern times, — putting up and pulling 
down their kings at pleasure ; passing selfish laws, which gave 
them the power of life and death over their serfs, whom they sold 
and bought like dogs or horses ; usurping to each of themselves 
the privileges of a petty sovereign, and denying to all besides the 
meanest rights of human beings ; and, scorning all pursuits as 
degrading, except that of the sword, they engaged in incessant 
wars with neighboring states, or they plunged their own country 
into all the horrors of anarchy, for the purpose of giving employ- 
ment to themselves and their dependants. 

In speaking of the Polish nation^ previously to the dismem- 
berment of that country by Russia, Prussia and Austria, we must 
not think of the great mass of the people, such as is implied 
by the use of that term with reference to the English or French 
nation of this day. The mass of the people were serfs, who had 
no legal protection and no political rights, who enjoyed no power 
over property of any kind, and ivho possessed less security of life 
and limb than has been lately extended to the cattle of this island 
by the act of Parliament against cruelty to animals ! The nobles, 
then, although they comprised but a mere fraction of the popula- 
tion, constituted the nation ; the rest of the inhabitants, the mil- 
lions of serfs who tilled the soil, worked the mines, or did the 
menial labor of the grandees, were actually, in the eye of the 
law, of no more rank — nay, as we have shown, they were ac- 
counted less — than our horses, which, after the toil of the day, 
lie down in security under the protection of Mr. Martin's benev- 

* " Never was this corruption of the state so fearful as here, where the no- 
iiiity constituted the nation, and where morals alone had made the want of a, 
constitution less perceptible. Everything, therefore, deteriorated. The time 
for awakening from this lethargy could not but come ; but what a moment 
was it to be ! " — Heeren's Manual, vol. i. p. 370. " By the constitution of 
1791, which changed the government from an elective to a hereditary mon- 
archy, all the privileges of the nobility were confirmed ; some favors, though 
very small, were accorded to the peasants ; these were slight, but more coald 
not be granted, without irritating the former nation, the nobility.'" — Heeren, vol 
ii. p. 231. 

5 



50 RUSSIA. 

olent act ; whilst the slave of Poland possessed no such guarantee 
from the wanton cruelty of an arbitrary owner. 

To form a correct estimate of the former condition of this coun- 
try, it is not necessary to go back beyond the middle of the six- 
teenth century — previously to which the Poles, in common with 
the other northern states, were barbarians ; and, if they attained 
to power, and exhibited some traits of rude splendor in their 
court and capital, they were merely results of incessant war?, 
which, of course, plunged the great mass of the people in deeper 
misery and degradation. At this early period of their country, 
we find them the most restless and warlike of the northern na- 
tions ; and the Poles, who are now viewed only as a suffering and 
injured people, were, during the thirteenth, fourteenth and fif- 
teenth centuries, a most formidable and aggressive enemy to the 
neighboring empires. They ravaged, successively, Russia, Prus- 
sia, Lithuania, Bohemia and Hungary, and were, in turn, invaded 
by the Turks, Tartars and Prussians. They knew no other em- 
ployment than that of the sword ; war, devastation and bloodshed, 
were the only fashionable occupations for the nobility, whilst the 
peasants reaped the fruits of famine and slaughter. Yet the his- 
torian whose volumes, perhaps, adorn the shelves of our colleges, 
and are deposited in the hands of the rising generation, points to 
the spectacle of intellectual and moral creatures grovelling in the 
abuse of a brute instinct shared equally by the shark and the 
tiger, and, pausing over the hideous annals of human slaughter, 
ejaculates — Glory! 

At the death, in 1572, of Sigismund Augustus, — the last of 
the Jagello race, in whose house the throne of Poland had been 
hereditary, — a new constitution was framed by the nation {that 
is, the nobles), by which it was decreed that the monarchy should 
be elective ; and the choice of the king was free and open to all 
the nation {that is, the nobles). In this constitution, — which 
was concocted for the exclusive benefit of the aristocracy, and 
did not even notice the existence of the great mass of the 
wretched people, the slaves, — it was agreed, amongst other 
enactments, that the nobles should pay no taxes; that they 
should have the power of life and death over their vassal ; that 



RUSSIA. 51 

all offices, civil, military and ecclesiastical, should belong to 
them ; and that, in choosing whom they would for a king, they 
were privileged to lay him under what restrictions they pleased. 

The mode of electing their kings, after the promulgation of 
this new constitution, was characteristic of the nation. About 
one hundred and fifty thousand to two hundred thousand nobles, 
being the electors, assembled together in a large plain : those 
who possessed horses and arms were mounted and ranged in bat- 
tle array in the front ; whilst such as were poor, and consequently 
came on foot, and without regular arms, placed themselves, with 
scythes or clubs in their hands, in the rear ranks. Our readers 
will readily believe that such an assembly as this, composed of 
warriors accustomed to violence, and with their arms at hand, 
would form a dangerous deliberative body ; and, unless actuated 
by the loftiest feelings of patriotism and virtue, it would degen- 
erate into two armies of sanguinary combatants. But what could 
we expect from these elections, when we know that, from the 
death of Sigismund, down to the time of the partition, Poland 
became one universal scene of corruption, faction and confusion ? 
The members of the diet, the nobles who had usurped the 
power of electing their king, were ready to sell themselves to 
t*he best bidder at the courts of Vienna, France, Saxony, Sweden 
or Brandenburgh ; nay, in the words of the learned and philo- 
sophical historian,* " A Polish royal election was, henceforth, 
nothing more than a double auction of the throne — partly in 
secret, for the benefit of the voters, partly in public, for the ben- 
efit of the state ;" or, in the words of the same authority, when 
alluding elsewhere to the change in the constitution at the death 
of Sigismund, " A volcano, in a manner, burst forth in the midst 
of Europe, whose eruptions, at almost every change of govern- 
ment, threatened, in turn, every country, far and near. Of the 
eleven kings of Poland, from Henry of Yalois, 1572, to Stanis- 
laus, 1764, hardly three were unanimously elected : foreign 
influence, and a wild spirit of faction, continued from first to 

* Manual of the State Policy of Modern Europe, by Professor Heeren, 
vol. i. p. 262. 



52 RUSSIA. 

last." 1 * In lamentable truth, almost every election became the 
signal for a civil war, which usually lasted during the greater 
portion of the next reign ; and thus, for the whole period from 
1572 down to 1772, when the first partition was perpetrated by 
the three neighboring powers, Poland was the constant scene of 
anarchy, and its attendant miseries, fire, bloodshed and famine. 
There is nothing in the history of the world comparable, for con- 
fusion, suffering and wickedness, to the condition of this unhappy 
kingdom during these two centuries. " War, even in its mildest 
form, is a perpetual violation of every principle of religion and 
humanit}' - .''! But foreign war is carried on with recognized laws 
for the mitigation of its evils, and under which the rights of 
person and property are, excepting in well-understood cases, 
secured to the peaceable portions of communities. Should an 
invasion or a conquest take place, the army of the invader or 
conqueror is compelled, for self-defence, to preserve discipline, and 
to congregate, as much as possible, round one centre, by which 
the enemy's country is preserved from the licentiousness of the 
victorious soldiers, and the more remote provinces almost entirely 
escape the miseries of war. Besides, it becomes immediately the 
policy and the interest of the victor to restore the newly-acquired 
territory to its former condition of quietness and prosperity ; and, 
with this view, laws for the protection of the inhabitants are gen- 
erally enforced. But civil war, or intestine war, as we prefer to 
call it, allows of none of these palliations. It spreads throughout 
the entire length and breadth of a country, and devastates alike 
every section of the community ; leaving no spot where the olive 
of peace may flourish and afford shelter to the innocent, and 
sparing no city which shall serve for a refuge to the timid. It 
desolates villages and farms, as well as towns and capitals; 
carries the spirit of deadly animosity into every relation of life, 
— setting neighbors against neighbors, servants against masters, 
and converting friends into foes ; — nay, it penetrates into the 
sacred precincts of domestic life, and often infuses a Cain-like 
hatred into the hearts of brethren of . the same womb. Such is 

* Heeren, vol. i. pp. 191 and 192. t Gibbon. 



RUSSIA. 53 

intestine war, which owns no law and permits no neutrality. And 
in the midst of this description of warfare Poland groaned and 
bled, with scarcely the slightest intermission, from 1572 to 1772. 
Many of those who will read this pamphlet have not the means 
or the leisure to investigate, as they otherwise ought undoubtedly 
to do, the history of the government ignorantly or mischievously 
praised, by some of our writers and speakers, under the name of 
the republic of Poland. Instead of such a government as we now 
understand in speaking of the American republics, it was a des- 
potism one hundred thousand times worse than that of Turkey at 
this time, because it gave to one hundred thousand tyrants abso- 
lute power over the lives of the rest of the community. The 
annals of republican Poland, previously to its dismemberment, are 
nothing but a system of anarchy ; and such is the title actually 
given to a work^ that is only a horrible catalogue of tragedies, 
in which the nobles are the actors; who crowd the scenes with 
murders, fires, torturings and famines, until the heart sickens with 
horror at the frightful spectacle. For nearly the whole of the 
century immediately preceding the downfall of Poland, religious 
discord was added to the other incalculable miseries of this coun- 
try, owing to the rise of sects of dissenters from the prevailing 
religion. Devastated by foreign and civil wars, and by famine 
and the plague, that followed in their train, the exhaustion of 
peace itself now served but to develop new miseries.! Fanat- 
icism and bigotry armed themselves with the sword, as soon as 
it was abandoned by the worshippers of Mars ; and they waged 
a warfare against the souls and bodies of their enemies with a 
fury that knew no bounds ; dealing out anathemas over wretches 
expiring at the stake, pulling down churches, and even tearing up 
the graves of the dead ! The historian who recounts the calami- 
ties that were showered upon the unhappy millions, the slaves, 

* **■ Histoire de PAnarchie de Pologne et du Demembrement de cette Re- 
publique." Par C. Ruhliere. Paris : 1807. 4 vols. 8vo. 

Tbe history of the anarchy of Poland, in four volumes octavo ! 

t " The flame of religious discord was now added, and the Jesuits took care 
that the fire should not be extinguished." — Heeren, vol. i. 344. 



54 RUSSIA. 

during this career of rapine and sacrilege, exclaims, " 0, that 
some strong despot would come, and in mercy rescue these people 
from themselves ! " 

The intrigues of Russia did not at first promote the growth of 
this terrible disorder, as might be objected by some of our readers. 
That power was itself struggling against powerful enemies, and 
contending with the difficulties of internal reforms, down to 
within half a century of the period when the partition of Poland 
took place. Those wise reforms^ that gave to Russia, from the 
hands of Peter the Great, the seeds of a power which has since 
grown to such greatness, and which, if adopted by Poland, would 
have, in all probability, conducted her to a similar state of pros- 
perity, were absolutely rejected by the profligate nobles, because 
they must necessarily have involved some amelioration of the fate 
of the people. 

The picture we have drawn of Polish wickedness and corrup- 
tion is not too highly colored — or, if so, it is not by us ; we have 
given the names and works of the authors from whom we derive 
our information, and we appeal to them as the highest authorities 
in the literature of Europe. What have been the retributive 
conseqences to empires, in all ages, of such a career of internal 
contention and profligacy as we have just described ? What was 
the just fate of Persia, Greece and Rome, after they had filled 
up the measure of their degeneracy ? When the oak is decayed 
at its heart, the tree yields to the wind, and falls prostrate on the 
earth ; a ship that is rotten no longer resists the pressure of sur- 
rounding water, and she disappears from the face of the ocean ; 
if, in constructing a bridge, the foundation of the piers be des- 
pised and neglected, the entire edifice, superstructure and all, is 
overwhelmed in the stream. And, knowing that the immutable 
laws of nature govern equally the destinies of animated existence, 
shall we marvel to find that an empire which had for two hundred 
years been decaying to its very centre, whilst its boundaries pre- 
sented no bulwark against the influx of raging enemies, — which 

* " The nation (the nobles) carefully guarded against any reform, such as 
was taking place in Russia." — Heeren, vol. i. p. 328. 



RUSSIA. 55 

had all that time exhibited the nobility wallowing in licentious- 
ness, and the laboring population, that ought to be the foundation 
and support of a country, insolently despised and trampled under 
foot, — ought we to wonder that such an empire at length reaped 
the sad harvest of its iniquities, and was prostrated or swallowed 
up by the force of surrounding nations ? The fate of Poland 
was but a triumph of justice, without which its history would 
have conveyed no moral for the benefit of posterity. The annals 
of the world do not exhibit an example of a great nation — such, 
for instance, as Prussia, united, well-governed, rising in intelli- 
gence, morals and religion, and advancing in wealth and civiliza- 
tion — falling beneath the destroying hand of a conqueror. Such 
a catastrophe is reserved for the chastisement of the self-aban- 
doned, depraved, disorganized, ignorant and irreligious communities, 
and their anarchical governments — for Babylon and Persepolis 
— for Poland and Turkey ! But, though the punishment was a 
righteous infliction, we need not vindicate the executioners. The 
murderer's sentence is just; but we are not therefore bound to 
tolerate the hangman. 

But we have yet to show, in the case of Poland, that the rod 
of affliction is administered by the great Ruler of the universe in 
a spirit not of vengeance, but of mercy. We are now to prove — 
and without claiming for the instruments of the ameliorations the 
merit of designing such happy results, or presuming to say that 
the same or better effects might not have followed from more 
righteous causes — that the dismemberment of that empire has 
been followed by an increase in the amount of peace, wealth, lib- 
erty, civilization and happiness, enjoyed by the great mass of the 
people. We shall not touch upon the fate of those portions of 
the Polish territory which, at the partition, fell to the spoil of 
Austria and Prussia, further than to observe that the present 
condition of their inhabitants, particularly of those of the latter, 
is, when contrasted with that of any former era of their history, 
only to be compared to the state of the blessed in the Elysian 
regions, as opposed to the sufferings of Pandemonium: 

Our business, however, lies with that portion of the (miscalled) 



56 RUSSIA. 

republic which fell to the share of Russia ; and we shall, in the 
first place, allude to the present state of that section of the in- 
habitants, which, from being by far the most numerous, ought, 
upon the soundest principle of justice, to attract the primary 
notice of the inquirer. Slavery no more exists in Poland : the 
peasant that tills the soil no longer ranks on a level with the 
oxen that draw his plough; he can neither be murdered nor 
maimed at the caprice of an insolent owner, but is as safe in life 
and limb, under the present laws of Poland, as are the laborers 
of Sussex or Kent. The modern husbandman is not restricted to 
mere personal freedom ; he enjoys the right to possess property 
of all kinds, not even excepting land,^ against which the nobles 
of ancient republican Poland opposed insuperable prohibitions. 
In a word, the peasantry of Poland now possess the control over 
their own persons and fortunes, and are at liberty to pursue hap- 
piness t according to their own free will and pleasure : which, 
after all that can be said for one government in preference to 
another, is nearly the amount of freedom that can be felt to be 
possessed by the great mass of any nation. Let it not be sup- 
posed that we wish to convey the impression that the laboring 
classes of the country under notice are elevated to an equality 
with the mechanics or husbandmen of England and America : 
from the very nature of circumstances, and from no one more 
than our iniquitous corn-laws, X — which have often starved our 
artisans in the midst of idle looms, and, at the same time, doomed 
the ploughman of Poland to nakedness or sheep-skins, whilst 
surrounded by granaries bursting with the best corn in the world, 
— such an equality is, in our day, impossible. But to show, in 
as few words as possible, what were the natural fruits, after fif- 

* " The whole of the lands are now alienable, and may be purchased by 
the peasants, and all other classes except the Jews." — Jacob's Report to the 
Lords, 1826, p. 66. 

f " Some rare instances of perseverance, industry and temperance, are to bo 
found ; and, unfavorable as their circumstances may be for the creation of 
such habits, they are here attended by the usual correspondent results. Some 
few peasants have been enabled to purchase estates for themselves." — Ja- 
cob's Report, p. 66. 

% Since abolished. 



RUSSIA. D< 

teen years of peace and comparative good government, to a coun- 
try that had, for two centuries, witnessed only the growth of dis- 
cord, insecurity and famine, let us quote from a volmne * which 
bears intrinsic evidence of containing an authentic and candid 
compendium of the history of Poland : 

"The condition of the country had continued to improve 
beyond all precedent ; at no former period of her history was the 
public wealth so great, or so generally diffused. Bridges and pub- 
lic roads, constructed at an enormous expense, frequently at the 
cost of the Czar's treasury ; the multitude of new habitations, 
remarkable for a neatness and a regard to domestic comfort never 
before observed ; the embellishments introduced into the buildings, 
not merely of the rich, but of tradesmen and mechanics; the 
encouragement afforded, and eagerly afforded, by the government, 
to every useful branch of industry ; the progress made by agricul- 
ture in particular, the foundation of Polish prosperity; the 
accumulation, on all sides, of national and individual wealth ; and, 
above all, the happy countenances of the inferior classes of society, 
exhibited a wonderful contrast to what had lately been. The most 
immense of markets, Russia, — a market all but closed to the rest 
of Europe, — afforded constant activity to the manufacturer. To 
prove this astonishing progress from deplorable, hopeless poverty 
to successful enterprise, let one fact suffice. In 1815, there were 
scarcely one hundred looms for coarse woollen cloths ; at the com- 
mencement of the insurrection of 1830, there were six thousand."! 

But it will very naturally and properly be inquired, " How did 
it happen that the nation revolted against Russia in 1830, if the 
people had enjoyed so much benefit from the connection with that 

* Cabinet Cyclopaedia — History of Poland, p. 269. 

f " Wherever Russia extended her sovereignty, there prevailed overwhelm- 
ing tyranny, grinding oppression, unblushing venality, odious corruption, 
treacherous espionages, spoliation, moral degradation and slavery. (Hear, 
hear. ) What good did Russia ever accomplish 1 It was said that she might 
civilize the barbarian Turks ; he believed they would hear no more about 
that, after the conduct of Russia towards Poland. The Poles did not, as the 
house well knew, rise until goaded into madness by a series of oppressions before un- 
heard of; the country was watered by the tears of its inhabit a7^ts. ,, — Lord Stuart's 
speech, House of Commons, Feb. 19, 1836. 



58 RUSSIA. 

empire ? " We have thus far spoken only of the condition of the 
mass of the people ; to answer this objection, it will be necessary 
to refer to another class, whose interests had always been opposed 
to the happiness and liberty of the population at large. From the 
moment when Poland was constituted a kingdom, at the treaty of 
Vienna, and made an appendage to the Russian crown, the nobles 
never ceased to sigh for their ancient liberty (license) of electing 
a king ; that is, of periodically selling themselves, by " a double 
auction," as Heeren asserts, to the highest bidder. They sighed, 
also, for those times when there was no law to protect the weak 
from their outrages, and when a reign of violence and disorder 
gave them perpetual occasions of making war upon each other, 
and of ravaging the unprotected provinces. The laws which were 
passed for the defence of the lives and properties of the peasants 
were regarded with jealousy * by the nobles, who viewed such enact- 
ments in the light of encroachments upon their privileges ; and 
they looked back to the days when they alone constituted the 
tuition, and all besides were but as the brutes of the field. It 
was not merely indirectly, however, that the privileges of the aris- 
tocracy were curtailed ; one of the first acts of the Emperor Alex- 
ander being to restrict the use of titles to the possessors of prop- 
erty in that country where, previously, the rank had descended to 
every son,\ and continued to all their successors, thus multiplying 
titles indefinitely, and adding a thousand-fold to the mischiefs of 
conferring absolute power on a particular class, by suffering it to 
be frequently possessed by desperadoes or paupers. But the 
cause that, more than all others, had contributed to render the 
nobles discontented, was the long-protracted peace, which deprived 
them of their accustomed occupation and revenue ; and which, 
however much it contributed to the happiness of the industrious 
agriculturists and traders, brought nothing but ruin and discontent 
to a body that retained too much of the pride and turbulence of 
character inherited from their warlike ancestors to dream of 
descending to pursuits of a commercial or peaceful character. To 
present a clear view of the state of this order of society in Poland, 

* Heeren, vol. ii. p. 231. t Jacob's Report, p. 60. 



RUSSIA. 59 

we will extract a few lines upon the subject from the work of Mr. 
Jacob, before quoted. It will place his authority beyond ques- 
tion, if we remind our readers that he is the gentleman who was 
selected, by a parliamentary committee, to make a journey through 
'the northern portions of Europe, for the purpose of making to his 
employers a report of the corn-trade of these regions. This indi- 
vidual, — who was, of course, not only selected for his efficient 
powers of observation, but also for his character for honor and 
fidelity, — in speaking, incidentally, of the state of society of Prus- 
sian Poland, in his official report, makes this observation upon the 
Polish gentry : " The Polish gentry are too proud to follow any 
course but the military career ; and the government, by its large 
standing army, encourages the feeling, though the pay is scarcely 
sufficient to supply the officers with their expensive uniforms. 
Whatever difficulties may present themselves to the placing out 
young men of good family, none have had recourse to commerce ; 
and, if they had, such would be treated by others as having lost 
their caste, and descended to a lower rank of society. The conse- 
quence is, that all the trade and manufactures of the country are 
in the hands of the Germans or the Jews." The former seek to 
return home with the fortunes they make ; the latter do not pos- 
sess the full rights of citizenship, and cannot be expected to take 
great interest in the prosperity of the country. 

The above account of the tone of feeling, and of the condition 
of the aristocratic party of Poland, written in 1825, accounts for 
the insurrection breaking out in 1830, when every other class of 
its inhabitants was in the enjoyment of unprecedented happiness 
and prosperity. And we hesitate not emphatically to assert that 
it vms wlwlly, and solely, and exclusively, at the instigation, and 
for the selfish benefit, of this aristocratic fraction of the people, that 
tlw Polish nation suffered far twelve months the horrors of civil 
war, was thrown back in her career of improvement, and has since 
had to endure the rigors of a conqueror's vengeance.* The Rus- 

* The peasants joined, to a considerable extent, the standard of revolt; but 
this was to be expected, in consequence of the influence necessarily exercised 
over them by the superior classes. Besides, patriotism or nationality is an 
instinctive virtue, that sometimes burns the brightest in the rudest and least 



60 RUSSIA. 

sian government was aware of this ; aDd its severity has since been 
chiefly directed towards the nobility.^ In the ukase of the 9th 
(21st) November, 1881, directing that five thousand Poles should 
be transported into the interior of the empire, it is expressly pro- 
vided that they be selected from the disaffected of the order of the 
gentry. And, in the order issued to the Russian troops employed 
to quell the insurrection, they are required, under severe penal- 
ties, to respect the houses and property of the Polish peasants. 

Now, we put it frankly to such of our readers as do not enjoy 
the leisure, or perhaps possess the taste, for informing themselves 
of the subject in hand, excepting through the periodical press and 
the orations of public speakers, whether we were not justified in 
asserting that they have been cheated of their stores of compas- 
sion by those who call forth public sympathy for the oppressed 
Polish people, by appealing to their former liberty, when the mass 
of the nation was in slavery ; by deploring the tyranny of the 
Russian government, which has served to give security and pro- 
tection to the great body of the poor, against the oppressions of 

reasoning minds ; and its manifestation bears no proportion to the value of 
the possessions defended, or the object to be gained. The Russian serfs 
at Borodino, the Turkish slaves at Ismail, and the lazzaroni of Naples, 
fought for their masters and oppressors more obstinately than the free citi- 
zens of Paris or "Washington did, at a subsequent period, in defence of those 
capitals. 

* We cannot help alluding to the unfortunate natives of this country who 
are now seeking an asylum in England, and who belong entirely, we believe, 
to the class here referred to. Our allusion is to the system which sacrificed 
millions to hundreds of thousands, and not to persons, or even to generations 
of persons. Above all, we would except the unfortunate stranger that is 
now within our gates, imploring our help in a season of distress. In throwing 
himself upon our shores, the unhappy Pole evinced his generous belief that 
we would protect and succor him, and he will not discover that we want the 
power or the will to do either; nor will we wait to inquire whether he be 
peer or peasant. The bird that, to escape from the tyrant of the skies, flies 
trembling to the traveller's bosom, is secure ; base, indeed, would he be first 
to examine if his fluttering guest were a dove or a hawk. We cannot, how- 
ever, approve of the lectures upon Polish history and literature, which have 
been delivered in many parts of the kingdom, by some of these refugees. 
They convey erroneous pictures of the former condition of that country ; ' 
glossing over the conduct of the nobles, and suppressing all mention of the 
miserable state of the serfs. 






RUSSIA. 61 

the powerful nobles ; by lauding the ancient prosperity, wealth, 
grandeur and happiness, of a country which, until the present age, 
was, at no period of its history, for fifteen successive years exempt 
from civil or foreign war ; from desolation, the plague or famine ;* 
and by imploring the powers to restore the Polish nation to it>s 
condition previously to the first partition in 1772, which would be 
to plunge nineteen-twentieths of the inhabitants from freedom 
into bondage, from comparative happiness into the profoundest 
state of misery ? But worse effects than the waste of a little mis- 
directed philanthropy follow from these misrepresentations. The 
British indignation and hatred towards Russia t have been awak- 
ened, and those fierce passions have taken possession of the public- 
mind throughout the kingdom so strongly as to place us in that 
most dangerous of all predicaments, where the majority is suffi- 
ciently excited by national prejudice to be brought within view 
of the hostile precipice, and only requires a further stimulus to 
plunge the country into the horrible gulf of war. And who and 
what are the writers and speakers that have made the subject of 
Poland the vehicle for conducting public opinion to the verge of 
such a catastrophe ? Are they cognizant or are they unaware of 
the merits of the question which we have now been faithfully dis- 
cussing ? In either case, out upon such quackery ! The empiric 
who, under pretence of healing their bodily disorders, fires the 
blood or deranges the bowels of his patients, suffers the penalty 
of homicide for the death of his victim, without inquiry whether 
the destructive nostrum was ignorantly or knowingly administered. 

* See Appendix for extracts from history of Poland. 

f The terms of abuse showered upon Nicholas in the British legislature are 
new in taste ; and, we think, when applied to a potentate at peace with us, 
*uch epithets as monster, Herod, miscreant, Ac, are not improvements upon 
the terms that we find in the earlier volumes of Hansard. In any case, would 
such language be honorable to the Parliament 1 Supposing a war should fol- 
low, is it dignified to precede hostilities with vituperative missiles 1 Spring 
and Langan set to with a better grace, by shaking hands at the scratch ; the 
rules of the Fives-court had better be transcribed, for the benefit of St. 
Stephen's. We are told, indeed, that it is a just manifestation of public 
opinion. We have heard similar expressions of opinion at Billingsgate and 
Clare market, and have observed that they sometimes lead to blows, bv* 
never to conviction. 



62 KUSSIA. 

And how long shall political quacks be permitted, without fear of 
punishment, and with no better justification than the plea of 
ignorance, to inflame the minds and disorder the understanding* 
of a whole nation, by stimulating them to a frenzy of hatred 
towards a people more than a thousand miles distant, and prepar- 
ing them for probably millions of murders, by administering, 
unchecked, their decoctions of lies, their compounds of invention 
and imposture, or their deadly doses of poisoned prejudice, gilded 
with spurious philanthropy ? 

We have thus (in allusion to the objections of those who take 
exceptions to Russian aggrandizement upon the ground that the 
encroachments of that power are always accompanied by the in- 
fliction of barbarous oppressions upon the conquered nations) 
shown that, in all cases where neighboring states have been annexed 
to that empire, the inhabitants have thereby been advanced in 
civilization and happiness. We have, in the case of Poland., 
which has undoubtedly benefited more than any other country by 
its incorporation with Russia, dwelt at greater length upon this 
point, both because we believe that the impression above referred 
to is all but universal in reference to this people, and because we 
are convinced that from this erroneous idea originates nearly all 
the hostility which, in just and generous minds, — and they are 
the great majority, — is entertained towards the Russian govern- 
ment and people. 

In examining the various giounds upon which those who dis- 
cuss the subject take up their hostile attitudes towards the Russian 
nation, we have — with infinite surprise, and a deep conviction of 
the truth that a century of aristocratic government, and conse- 
quent foreign interference, have impregnated all classes with the 
haughty and arrogant spirit of their rulers — discovered that Great 
Britain has been argued into a warlike disposition against that 
remote empire, without one assignable motive or grievance which 
could have even engendered a tone of resentment from our pub- 
lic writers and speakers, had they been actuated only by the 
principles of common-sense, modest forbearance, and a regard for 
the benefit of the people. We have sought in vain for cases of 
insult to our flag ; for an example of spoliation committed upon 



RUSSIA. 63 

English merchants ; for the -appearance of hostile fleets in British 
waters, threatening our shores ; for the denial of redress for in- 
juries inflicted ; for the refusal to liquidate some just debt : we 
have sought for such wrongs as these at the hands of the Russian 
government, to justify an appeal to menaces, and a call for arma- 
ments, from our Russo-rnaniac orators and writers ; but we find 
only charges of spoliation of Turkish territory, assaults upon Po- 
land, intrigues with Persia, designs upon Sweden, and conquests 
in Georgia — affairs with which we have less interest in embroil- 
ing ourselves than we have with the struggle now raging in the 
province of Texas, between the Americans and Mexicans ! 

If we refer to the speech of Lord Dudley Stuart, before alluded 
to (which is a compendium of all the accusations, suppositions, 
fears, dangers and suspicions, of which the subject is susceptible), 
we shall find an alarming picture given of the future growth of 
Russian dominion. Turkey, it seems, is to be only the germ of 
an empire, which shall extend not merely from " Indus to the 
Pole," but throw forth its arms over Europe and Asia, and em- 
brace every people and nation between the Bay of Bengal and 
the English Channel ! Turkey once possessed, and the devouring 
process begins. Austria and all Italy are to be swallowed up at 
a meal, Greece and the Ionian Islands serving for side-dishes. 
Spain and Portugal follow as a dessert for this Dando of Constan- 
tinople; and Louis Philippe and his empire are washed down 
afterwards, with Bordeaux and Champagne. Prussia and the 
smaller German States, having wisely formed themselves into a 
trades-union of some thirty or forty millions, might be supposed 
by some persons to be secure from this tyrannical master. Noth- 
ing of the kind ! His lordship has discovered that this is a mere 
trick of Russia for making them a richer prey. The German 
goose is only penned in this Prussian league, that it may fatten 
and be worthier of the fate that awaits it; when Michaelmas 
arrives, it will be served up, in due state, to the Russian eagle. 
Belgium, Sweden, Denmark and Holland, are to be but as entre- 
mets for this national repast. And Persia, Egypt, Arabia and 
India, in one large bouquet, will furnish the exotics to perfume 



64 RUSSIA. 

and adorn this banquet of empires ! * One trifling matter, how- 
ever, Lord Stuart altogether forgets to take into account : he omits 
to say how all the viands shall be paid for ; in other words, in 
what way the Russian Chancellor of the Exchequer will make 
good his budget, when called upon to clothe, feed, and pay armies 
to conquer a dozen powerful nations, some of them richer than 
the conqueror — to meet the expenses of materiel, to furnish the 
commissariat, hire baggage-wagons, charter transports, and to 
cover the thousand other out-goings, including even the frauds and 
impositions incidental to a state of warfare. His lordship for- 
gets this ; and in doing so calls to our recollection a dream — 
our readers have probably experienced something of the kind — 

* " Russia, as honorable members must be well aware, was not at the least 
pains to disguise her dissatisfaction at the present state of affairs in the 
Peninsula ; and with a frontier so far advanced as hers now was, could any 
man living doubt that she would very soon adopt plain modes of making that 
dissatisfaction felt 1 He repeated, that, with a frontier so far advanced, 
Italy was not safe from her grasp ; and Russia once established there, the 
consequences to Austria must be tremendous. Russia was surrounding, 
was enveloping Austria. Turkey would soon fall a prey to her lust of ex- 
tended dominion. Greece would be a mere province of Russia ; indeed, 
already, Greece was subjected to her influence ; and she scarcely hesitated 

to menace France He would again say that the whole of the 

Prussian league was at the instigation of Russia, the former being the mere 
creature of the latter. When the present designs of Russia were accom- 
plished, they would soon see how she was becoming jealous of Prussia, and 
a pretext would not be long wanting for the destruction of that instrument 
which the great northern power had used in erecting and confirming its own 
ascendency. Prussia was prepared to do everything which Russia might dic- 
tate, for the purpose of forwarding her designs ; but she might fully antici- 
pate this — that as soon as the plans of the Autocrat were matured, he would 
m a day (/) dismember and pull down his present allies ; and, after that, 
Austria could not long resist. Then, in another quarter of her great empire, 
let them only look at the advantages possessed by Russia. She had military 

stations within thirty miles of the western coast of Norway 

That country could furnish sailors inferior to none in the world, and the 
whole district abounded with timber of the best quality. Russia would then 
become a naval power of the first order (/) and might be joined by the Ameri- 
cans or the Dutch, to the manifest disadvantage of England." (! !) — Times' 
>eport of Lord Dudley Stuart's speech, Feb. 19, "1836. 

These sentiments appear to have been delivered with gravity, and listened 
to by the House of Commons without a smile ! 



RUSSIA. 65 

ia which we found ourselves buoyed up in the air, and borne 
along, we could not tell how. It was not walking, flying, or 
swimming ; yet on we glided through space, quite independent of 
all the laws of nature — hills disappearing, rivers drying up, 
seas changing into terra firma, trees, walls and castles, vanishing 
at our approach; despising all the usual impediments of sublu- 
nary travelling, caring no more for inns than if we had been 
a shooting star, and regardless, like Halley's comet, of a change 
of horses, on we went, with no luggage to look after, or 
hotel-bills to settle, or postilions to pay, till, alas ! we awoke, 
and discovered that we were only a mortal biped, trammelled by 
the law of gravitation, and enslaved by the rules of political 
economy — privileged but to travel along coarse, dirty roads, and 
compelled, before starting, not only to calculate the cost of the 
journey, but to put the money in our purse for coaches, steam- 
boats, turnpike-gates, and inns, as well as their waiters, boots, 
porters and chambermaids, besides a round sum to cover extor- 
tions, if we would keep our temper. Now, Lord Stuart's case 
was precisely similar to ours, with the exception that he did not 
awake from his vision of supernatural locomotion. But, to be 
serious. To those who resort,, as a crowning bugbear, to the 
threats of universal sovereignty as the ultimate aim of the Russian 
government, we have already, in some degree, replied, by showing 
the weakness of that empire, as exemplified in its uncultivated 
surface; in the scattered position of its uncivilized people — 
their poverty, ignorance, and diversified character; and in the 
circumstance of its being behind Great Britain and other coun- 
tries in the march of improvement and discovery. 

Bat we can appeal to other facts, and to experience, to disprove 
the exaggerated views that are put forth respecting the power of 
Russia ; and in no instance were her weakness and inability to 
concentrate and support an army more fully illustrated than at 
the invasion of her territory by Bonaparte. At the battle of 
Borodino — which was the first great affair that took place be- 
tween the French and the forces of the Czar — we find, notwith- 
standing the alarm of invasion had been trumpeted through 
Europe eighteen months previously, that the number of combat- 
ed 



66 RUSSIA. 

ants brought on that bloody day, to the defence of their native 
•soil, only amounted to one hundred and twenty thousand men, of 
whom a large portion were without uniforms or arms, excepting 
scythes, or other similar weapons. Now, to illustrate the very 
superior strength of a nation whose inhabitants are at once con- 
centrated and rich, let us suppose so absurd a circumstance as 
that Russia, after eighteen months of open preparation and 
threatening, were to march an army of nearly half a million of 
■soldiers into England ; should we be found, after so ample a warn- 
ing, opposing only one hundred and twenty thousand fighting men, 
and that number only half armed and clothed, in defence of our 
homes, our wives and daughters, in the first battle-field ? London 
alone could furnish and equip such an army, in so great a cause 
within six months ! Nor did the deficiency of numbers arise 
from want of patriotism. On the contrary, the Russians fought 
with unequalled ardor and bravery,^ and the only reason that 
Napoleon's troops were not on that occasion overwhelmed by ten 
times their forceps, that the government had not money to pay 
for transporting its subjects from remote provinces to the scene 
of action, or funds to provide arms and support them when col- 
lected together. 

It has been well observed by a very sound authority t that China 
affords the best answer to those who argue that Russia meditates 
hostile views towards our Indian possessions. China is separated 
from Russia by an imaginary boundary only ; and that country- 
is universally supposed to contain a vast deposit of riches, well 
worthy of the spoiler's notice. Besides, it has not enjoyed the 
" benefit " of being civilized by English or other Christian con- 
querors — an additional reason for expecting to find a wealthy 
pagan community, awaiting, like unwrought mines, the labors of 
some Russian Warren Hastings. Why, then, does not the Czar 

* Regiments of peasants, who till that day had never seen war, and whe 
<till had no other uniform than their gray jackets, formed with the steadiness 
of veterans, crossed their brows, and, having uttered their national exclama- 
tion, " Gospodee pomilo uin as ! " — God have mercy upon us! — rushed into* 
the thickest of the battle. — Scott's Napoleon, chap. 77. 

t Spectator newspaper, No. 3861 



RUSSIA. 67 

invade the Chinese empire,^ which is his next neighbor, and con- 
tains an unravaged soil, rather than contemplate, as the alarmist 
writers and speakers predict he does, marching three thousand 
miles, over regions of burning deserts and ranges of snowy moun- 
tains, to Hindostan, where he would find that Clive and Wellesley 
had preceded him ? The reason for such forbearance is, at the 
present day, as it was when that splendid but immoral genius, 
Catherine, proposed to undertake this very expedition, that there 
is not in Russia sufficient available wealth to transport across its 
own surface an army large enough to subjugate the Chinese. 
How, then, will they reach India through enemies' territories, and 
in spite of the power and influence of England ? To warrant the 
attempt, the Czar ought to possess at least the command of one 
hundred millions sterling. Last year, he required but one million 
and a quarter ; t for which he was compelled to solicit the aid of 
the capitalists of western Europe, and found great difficulty, even 
after pledges of peace and protestations of good behavior, in obtain- 
ing the necessary loan ! 

" Russia once in possession of Constantinople, and farewell to the 
liberties of Europe ! " is the cry of those who are "possessed " with 
the dread of Muscovite ambition ; and the very repetition of this 
prophecy is calculated to produce believers in its truth. How it 
is that Russia is to conquer one hundred millions of people, supe- 

* Unless his Muscovite majesty should adopt this suggestion quickly, 
there appears some chance that Er.gland may be before him at Pekin. We 
perceive that some of our writers are anxious that we should send some ships 
of war to compel the Chinese government to open other ports to our vessels 
besides Canton, and to dictate certain other regulations for carrying on trade 
with us, which they are good enough to suggest to his Celestial Majesty. 
Could not our ships of war call in on-the way, and compel the French people 
to transfer the trade of Marseilles to Ilavre, and thus save us the carriage 
of their wines and madders through the Straits of Gibraltar 1 Why should 
not they force the Americans to restrict the export of their cotton to New 
York, rather than to suffer the growth of Savannah and Mobile 1 Well may 
the Chinese proclaim us " outside barbarians ; " for verily this is outside bar- 
barous morality ! 

t Double the amount might be raised, without difficulty, upon sufficient 
security, in Manchester, in less than forty-eight hours, if the profit or other 
motive offered an adequate inducement. 



68 RUSSIA. 

rior to her own population in wealth, freedom, instruction and 
morality, and armed with all the superiority of power which an 
ascendency in those qalities ever has, and always will bestow upon 
civilized communities over barbarous nations, not one of those 
writers and speakers has condescended to explain ; the ways and 
means are studiously avoided, or disregarded as of no consequence. 
Yet, that Russia possesses no superhuman properties, which enable 
her to disregard the ordinary impediments of nature, we have 
already shown, in the example of her inability, when attacked, to 
resist the invader, owing to a want of the money, food, arms 
and clothing, necessary to the transport and maintenance of large 
armies. With such an example of her weakness in defensive 
operations as we have just given, we need not be surprised that we 
have very abundant proofs of the feebleness of that empire when 
engaged in aggressive warfare. All the hostilities carried on 
between Russia and her barbarous neighbors, Turkey and Persia, 
have been full of evidences of the difficulty with which the first 
power achieved her successive conquests, and the precarious tenure 
by which she has held them. Indeed, the last war with Turkey 
was, from the combined causes of deficient means of transport, 
defective commissariat supplies, and want of hospitals, — all aris- 
ing from the poverty of the government, — protracted so long, and 
attended with so great a loss of life to the invaders, that it left no 
doubt with reflecting minds of the incompetency of Russia to sus- 
tain a war of aggression with Prussia, Austria, or any other civil- 
ized state. 

But Poland is the best and latest witness of the weakness and 
poverty of Russia. Notwithstanding that the insurrection in that 
country broke out at a moment when the preparations were not 
matured (owing to the rashness of the military youths of Warsaw), 
and although the natives possessed no strong places, as in Belgium, 
and their territory is destitute of mountain fastnesses, such as are 
found in Spain, Scotland or Switzerland, yet a mere handful of 
insurgents baffled the whole power of the Czar for twelve months, 
several times defeating his ill-equipped armies with great slaughter, 
and at last were subdued only through the perfidy of the Prussian 
authorities. Surely, with this experience of Russian weakness 



RUSSIA. 69 

and poverty to appeal to, we need not refer to the dangers appre- 
hended for France, Germany and Spain, unless it be to ask whether 
a British Parliament, possessing so many unsatisfied claims upon 
its time and attention at home — from two millions of paupers in 
a neighboring island, declared by authority to be without the 
means of subsistence ; from the Dissenters of this kingdom and 
the Catholics of Ireland ; and from the discontented tax-payers at 
large — whether the British legislature might not very properly 
leave the care of those independent and powerful empires to their 
own governments, at least for the present, until the business of the 
united empire shall have been more satisfactorily despatched. 

"We shall, however, be told that, in arguing for the weakness 
of this empire from past experience, we lose sight of the differ- 
ence between Russia in the Baltic and Russia in the Mediterra- 
nean. " The government of St. Petersburg once transferred to 
Constantinople, and Russia thenceforth becomes the first maritime 
power of Europe," is the universal cry of the alarmists. How ? 
0, the oaks of Bosnia, which are the finest in the world for ship- 
building, would be then at her command ! But where would the 
sailors be found by a power possessing no mercantile marine ? 
Napoleon thought vainly to create a navy from those very forests ; 
he ordered tools to be forged in the country, and roads to be cut, 
by which the French legions might penetrate into Illyria, and the 
oaks of Bosnia be thus transported to the harbors on the Adriatic. 
He, moreover, contrived to bring the forests of Switzerland to 
Antwerp, by constructing the famous shoot down the side of Mount 
Pilatus. The timber rotted in his harbors ; for how could the navies 
arise, whilst England commanded the trade of the ocean ? Napoleon 
Bonaparte was a madman in all that related to commercial science, 
and his disastrous fate was the inevitable consequence ; but they 
who, with his example before them, can assume the existence of 
the largest navy in the world in the possession of a people whose 
carrying trade is in the hands of another nation, without the pre- 
vious growth of manufactures and commerce, are, in that partic- 
ular, more hopelessly mad than the Corsican usurper. As well 
and as wisely might they assume the existence of the ripened har- 
vest when no soed had been sown, or reckon on the growth of a 



70 RUSSIA. 

city where neither builders nor inhabitants had ever existed! 
Until Russia becomes a great trading empire, she will not be in 
even the path for surpassing us in naval power. We have else- 
where shown that she cannot enlarge her commerce without there- 
by enriching us, even more than any other people; how, then, 
can Russia hope to become equal to ourselves upon the ocean, 
unless England should, for the purpose of enabling her to do so, 
resolve to stand still ?* 

But supposing that Russia were to seize the first moment of her 
occupancy of Turkey to begin to build ships of war, and, by aid 
of Greek sailors, to man a fleet at Constantinople ; and presum- 
ing, moreover, that, having obtained violent possession of Nor- 
way, she were to employ similar means for erecting a naval power 
in the Baltic, let us then call the attention of our readers to the 
defenceless and dependent position in which her territory would 
be placed, owing to the peculiar geographical features of those 
quarters of the globe. The sole outlet for the waters of the Sea 
of Marmora and the Black Sea is by the canal of the Dardanelles, 
called the Hellespont ; a passage whose navigable width scarcely 
exceeds two thousand yards for a length of nearly thirty miles, 
To blockade the entrance of this strait would require that a couple 
of ships of the line, a frigate, and a steamer, should be stationed 
at its mouth : and with no larger force than this might the egress 
of any vessel be prevented from the interior seas ; and not only so, 
but, as these four men-of-war would constitute, in the eyes of all 
foreign powers, and according to the law of nations, a sufficient 
blockade, they would deprive Constantinople and the whole Turk- 
ish empire of all foreign trade, besides shutting out from the com- 

* When the measures for conciliating the respective commercial interests 
of parties in the Irish union were arranging, the opinion of practical men 
was taken as to the period at which the cotton manufacture of Ireland might 
be able to go on, in competition with that of England, without the help of 
protecting duties ; and Mr. William Orr, of Dublin, who had introduced the 
manufacture into that country, was asked if he thought it likely that, in ten 
years, the Irish manufacturers would overtake the English in skill. Mr. 
Orr replied, " Yes, if the English can be persuaded, during that time, to 
etand still." 



RUSSIA. 71 

merce of the Mediterranean Sea, and the rest of the world, the 
entire coast of the Euxine, and its thousands of miles of tributary 
rivers. If we now transfer our attention to the northern portions 
of the Russian empire, we shall find that the passage of the Sound, 
through which all the trade of the Baltic is compelled to pass, is 
scarcely' less narrow than that of the Hellespont ; and, provided 
llussia had gained possession of the interior of these straits, 
according to the supposition of the alarmists, then half a dozen 
ships of war might hermetically seal the whole of northern Europe 
against the trade of the world. In short, llussia, with the addi- 
tion of Turkey, would possess but two outlets, each more con- 
tracted than the river Thames at Tilbury fort ; and, as these 
could be declared in a state of lawful blockade by less than a 
dozen vessels of war, it is clear that nature herself has doomed 
llussia to be in a condition of the most abject and prostrate sub- 
jection to the will of the maritime powers. This is a point of 
paramount importance in estimating the future growth of the 
country under consideration. It should never be lost sight of for 
a moment, in arguing upon the subject, that Russia, in possession 
of Turkey and all the coasts of the Black Sea, besides her pres- 
ent stupendous expanse of territory, would still be denied, by the 
hand of nature herself, a navigation of more than three miles in 
width, to connect her millions of square leagues of territory with 
the rest of the globe, — a peculiarity the more striking since it 
could not be found to exist in any other quarter of the earth. It 
is deserving of notice, that these two narrow straits which guard 
the entrances to the Black Sea and the Baltic are nearly six 
months' sail distant from each other ; and the track by which 
alone they can communicate lying through the Straits of Dover 
and of Gibraltar, it must be apparent that, were Russia the mis- 
tress of those channels, she could not pass from the one to the 
other, unless she were in amicable connection with Great Britain.^ 

* To illustrate the view taken, — during the war between Russia and the 
Porte, in 1791, the government of St. Petersburg, anxious to send a fleet tc 
attack the Turkish power in the Archipelago, requested permission of the 
Dutch and English to be allowed to refit the vessels and take in stores at 
one of their ports ; and, failing in this application, the expedition was aban- 
doned. 



72 RUSSIA. 

There remains but one more point requiring our consideration 
in connection with the abstract question of Muscovite aggrandize- 
ment. They who predict the unbounded extension of Russia for- 
get the inevitable growth of weakness which, attends the undue 
expansion of territorial dominion.^ Not only can they foresee, 
without difficulty, the conquest of Germany, France, Spain, Per- 
sia and India, but they are, at the same time, blind to the dan- 
gers which must attend the attempt to incorporate into one cum- 
brous empire these remote and heterogeneous nations. In all ages 
and climes nature has given the boundaries for different commu- 
nities ; and we find that not only are the several families of the 
earth generally enclosed by seas or mountains, to mark the lim- 
its of their respective territories, but the rivers usually flow through 
lands inhabited by people of one language, thus constituting a 
double natural line of demarcation. For example, the Alps and 
the Pyrenees afford the barriers beneath the opposite sides of 
which repose the French, Spanish and Italian nations, within 
which arise the Rhone and Garonne of France, the Tagus and 
Guadalquivir of the Peninsula, and the Po and Aclige of Italy ; 
each of which may be almost said to water integral countries. 
And, seeing that these allotments of the earth's surface are suffi- 
ciently defined by the hand of nature to have drawn together, in 
the earliest ages, the scattered seed of Adam into separate and 
distinct families, how infallibly shall the same natural limits suf- 
fice to preserve those distinctions, when aided by those potent safe- 
guards of nationality, the diversified histories, religions, languages 
and laws, of ancient and powerful empires ! These are reflections 
that do not seem to have occurred to those writers who assign the 
sovereignty of Europe and Asia over to Russia ; and, even if they 
had crossed their minds, such trifling impediments could hardly 

* " In large bodies, the circulation of power must be less at the extrem- 
ities ; nature herself has said it. The Turk cannot govern Egypt as he gov- 
erns Thrace, nor has he the same dominion in the Crimea and Algiers which 
he has at Brusa and Smyrna. Despotism itself is obliged to truck and huck- 
ster ; the Sultan gets such obedience as ho can ; he governs with a loose 
rein, that he may govern at all ; it is the eternal law of extension and de- 
tached empire." — Burke. 



RUSSIA. 73 

have discouraged them, after having surmounted so much greater 
obstacles. For assuredly they who can bestow upon Russia the 
supremacy of the seas whilst her carrying trade is in the hands of 
England, or who can award her the victory over rich, united and 
powerful nations, without the previous possession of money, mate- 
riel, or provisions for her armies, need not be daunted by such 
trifling natural difficulties as the Himalayas or the Alps present 
against the concentrations of a government over her conquests, or 
feel a moment's alarm about regulating with the same tariff the 
commerce of the Rhine, Danube, Neva, and Ganges. 

We have now, we believe, noticed every argument with which 
it has been the custom to urge us to participate in Russian and 
Turkish quarrels and intrigues ; and we have endeavored to show, 
by a candid appeal to facts, that the dangers with which we are 
threatened in our commerce, colonies, or national dominion, from 
the power of Russia, are chimerical. We have likewise shown 
that the prejudices existing in the minds of the British people 
against that power, and which have been industriously fostered by 
the writers and speakers of the day, are founded in delusion and 
misrepresentation ; that the spread of Russian empire has invari- 
ably increased, instead of diminishing, the growth of civilization 
and commerce ; that she owes her extension less to her own forces, 
which we have shown to be weak, than to the disunion or barba- 
rism of her neighbors ; and that the very nature of her geograph- 
ical position must always keep her in dependence upon the good- 
will of other maritime powers. Where, then, are the motives — 
seeing that Russia has not inflicted the slightest wrong upon us, or 
even contemplated one substantial injury to our people — for the 
warlike spirit which now pervades the current writings and speeches 
upon the subject of that nation? We do not kiuow — for we have 
not been able in our researches upon this subject to discover — one 
solitary ground upon which to found a pretence, consistent with 
reason, common-sense or justice, for going to war with Russia. 
7 



CHAPTER III. 



THE BALANCE OF POWER, 



Mischievous Passion of the English for Intermeddling with Foreign States. 
— Supposed necessity of maintaining " an Imposing Attitude." — The Bal- 
ance of Power Defined. — Inconsistency of the Definitions. — Chimerical 
Nature of said Balance. — Lord Bacon's Policy of Nations. — Claims of the 
Turks to the Protection of the "Balance." — Inconsistency of the Advo- 
cates of the Balance of Power. — The Americans and the Balancing Sys- 
tem. — Sound Policy of the United States. 

Our object has not only been to deprecate war as the greatest 
evil that can befall a people, but to show that we have no interest 
in maintaining the statu quo of Turkey ; and, consequently, that 
the armaments which, in a time of peace, are maintained, at an 
enormous cost, for the purpose of making demonstrations in favor 
of that country, and against Russia, might be reduced, and their 
expense spared to the tax-payers of the British empire. 

We shall here be encountered with a very general prepossession 
in favor of our maintaining what is termed a rank amongst the 
states of the continent, — which means, not that we should be free 
from debt, or that our nation should be an example to all others 
for the wealth, education, and virtues of its people, but that Eng- 
land shall be consulted before any other countries presume to 
quarrel or fight ; and that she shall be ready, and shall be called 
upon, to take a part in every contention, either as mediator, 
second, or principal. So prevalent and so little questioned has 
this egotistical spirit become, that, when an honorable member 
rises in Parliament, to call upon a minister of the crown to ac- 
count for some political changes in Spain, Portugal or Turkey, 
instead of the question encountering the laughter c p the house 



RUSSIA. 75 

(as such an inquiry would probably do from the homely repre- 
sentatives who meet to attend to their constituents' affairs at 
Washington), or the questioner being put down by the function- 
ary, with something after Cain's answer, " Am I the Span- 
iard's keeper ? " the latter offers grave explanations and excuses, 
whilst the audience looks on with silent attention, as though every 
word of our foreign secretary were pregnant with the fate of 
nations bowing to his sway. 

If we go back through the parliamentary debates of the last 
few reigns, we shall find this singular feature in our national 
character — the passion for meddling with the affairs of foreign- 
ers — more strikingly prominent in every succeeding succession ; 
and, at the breaking out of the French revolution, the reader is 
astonished to see that the characters of the leaders of the mobs 
of Paris, Marseilles and Lyons, and the conduct of the govern- 
ment of France, became the constant subjects of discussion in the 
House of Commons, almost to the exclusion of matters of domes- 
tic interest, — Pitt and Burke on one side, and Fox, Grey and 
Sheridan, on the other, attacking and defending the champions of 
the revolution, with the same ardor as if the British legislature 
were a responsible tribunal, erected over the whole of Christen- 
dom, and endowed with powers to decide, without appeal, the 
destinies of all the potentates and public men of Europe.^ Un- 

* That this spirit still survives in full vigor, may be shown by the motion 
recently made in the House of Commons, by Mr. T. Buncombe, for interced- 
ing with the French government in behalf of the state prisoners at Ham. 
Prince Polignac and his confederates attempted by their coup d'etat to deprive 
France of law, place the whole country in the hands of despots, and reduce 
it to the monkish ignorance of the middle ages, by giving again to priests 
and bigots the absolute power over the printing-press. In this attempt they 
failed ; but freedom conquered at the cost of hundreds of victims. In Eng- 
land, or any other country but France, those ministers would have suffered death. 
Yet, after five years of confinement, behold us interfering with the course of 
justice in an empire with whose internal concerns we are no more entitled to 
mix than with those of China ! 

Within a week of this display, a lad was transported from Macclesfield for 
fourteen years, for stealing a pair of stockings ! We recommend this to our 
facetious Gallic neighbors, as a fit opportunity for intervention. The mother 
should be induced to write her case to M. Odillon Barrot, or some other pop- 
ular member of the Chamber of Beputies. 



70 RUSSIA. 

happily, the same passion had impregnated the minds of the 
public generally (as it continues to do down to our own day), and 
the result was, as everybody knows, the Bourbon crusade. But 
England, in taking upon herself to make war with the spirit of 
the age, encountered the Fates ; and, instead of destroying that 
infant freedom which, however monstrous and hideous at its birth, 
was destined to throw off its bloody swathes, and, in spite of the 
enmity of the world, to dispense the first taste of liberty to all 
Europe, she was herself the nurse that, by her opposition, rocked 
the French revolution into vigorous maturity. 

Our history during the last century may be called the tragedy 
of " British intervention in the politics of Europe ;"' in which 
princes, diplomatists, peers and generals, have been the authors 
and actors, the people the victims ; and the moral will be 
exhibited to the latest posterity in eight hundred millions of 
debt. 

We have said that our proposal to reduce our armaments will 
be opposed, upon the plea of maintaining a proper attitude, as it 
is called, amongst the nations of Europe. British intervention in 
the state policy of the continent has been usually excused under 
the two stock pretences of maintaining the balance of power in 
Europe, and of protecting our commerce ; upon which two sub- 
jects, as they bear indirectly on the question in hand, we shall 
next offer a few observations. 

The first instance in which we find the "balance of power" 
alluded to in a king's speech is on the occasion of the last address 
of William III. to his Parliament, December 31, 1701, where he 
concludes by saying, " I will only add this, — if you do in good 
earnest desire to see England hold the balance of Europe, it will 
appear by your right improving the present opportunity." From 
this period, down almost to our own time (latterly, indeed, the 
phrase has become, like many other cant terms, nearly obsolete), 
there will be found, in almost every successive king's speech, a 
constant recurrence to the " balance of Europe ;" by which, we 
may rest assured, was always meant, however it might be con- 
cealed under pretended alarm for the " equilibrium of power " 
or the " safety of the continent," the desire to see England "hold 



RUSSIA. 77 

the balance." The phrase was found to please the public ear ; 
it implied something of equity ; whilst England, holding the bal- 
ance of Europe in her hand, sounded like filling the office of 
justice herself to one-half of the globe. Of course, such a post 
*of honor could not be maintained, or its dignity asserted, without 
a proper attendance of guards and officers ; and we consequently 
find that, at about this period of our history, large standing 
armies began to be called for ; and not only were the supplies 
solicited by the government, from time to time, under the plea of 
preserving the liberties of Europe, but, in the annual mutiny-bill 
(the same in form as is now passed every year), the preamble 
stated, amongst other motives, that the annual army was voted 
for the purpose of preserving the balance of power in Europe. 
The "balance of power," then, becomes an important practical 
subject for investigation ; it appeals directly to the business and 
bosoms of our readers, since it is implicated with an expenditure 
of more than a dozen millions of money per annum, every far- 
thing of which goes, in the shape of taxation, from the pockets of 
the public. 

Such of our readers as have not investigated this subject will 
not be a little astonished to find a great discrepancy in the sev- 
eral definitions of what is actually meant by the " balance of 
power." The theory — for it has never yet been applied to prac- 
tice — appears, after upwards of a century of acknowledged 
existence, to be less understood now than ever. Latterly, indeed, 
many intelligent and practical-minded politicians have thrown the 
question overboard, along with that of the balance of trade — 
of which number, without participating in their favored attri- 
butes, we claim to be ranked as one. The balance of power, — 
which has, for a hundred years, been the burden of kings' 
speeches, the theme of statesmen, the ground of solemn treaties, 
and the cause of wars ; which has served, down to the very year 
in which we write, and which will, no doubt, continue to serve for 
years to come, as a pretence for maintaining enormous standing 
armaments, by land and sea, at a cost of many hundreds of mil- 
lions of treasure — the balance of power is a chimera ! It is not 
a fallacy, a mistake, an imposture — it is an undescribed, inde- 
7* 



78 RUSSIA. 

ecribable, incomprehensible nothing; mere words, conveying to 
the mind not ideas, but sounds like those equally barren syllables 
which our ancestors put together for the purpose of puzzling 
themselves about words, in the shape of Prester John, or the 
philosopher's stone ! We are bound, however, to see what are the 
best definitions of this theory. 

" By this balance," says Vattel, " is to be understood such a 
vlisposition of things as that no one potentate or state shall be 
able, absolutely, to predominate and prescribe laws to the others." 
— Law of Natio?is, b. 3, c. 3, § 47. 

"What is usually termed a balance of power," says Gentz, 
•' is that constitution subsisting among neighboring states, more or 
less connected with one another, by virtue of which no one among 
them can injure the independence or essential rights of another 
without meeting with effectual resistance on some side, and conse- 
quently exposing itself to danger." — Fragments on the Political 
Balance, c. 1. 

" The grand and distinguishing feature of the balancing system," 
says Brougham, " is the perpetual attention to foreign affairs 
which it inculcates ; the constant watchfulness over every nation 
which it prescribes; the subjection in which it places all national 
passions and antipathies to the fine and delicate view of remote 
expediency ; the unceasing care which it dictates of nations most 
remotely situated, and apparently unconnected with ourselves ; 
the general union which it has effected of all the European powers, 
obeying certain laws, and actuated in general by a common prin- 
ciple ; in fine, the right of mutual inspection, universally recog- 
nized, among civilized states, in the rights of public envoys and 
residents." — Brougham's Colonial Policy, b. 3, § 1. 

These are the best definitions we have been able to discover 
of the system denominated the balance of power. In the first 
place, it must be remarked that, taking any one of these descrip- 
tions separately, it is so vague as to impart no knowledge even of 
the writer's meaning ; whilst, if taken together, one confuses and 
contradicts another — Gentz describing it to be " a constitution 
subsisting among neighboring states, more or less connected with 
each other ; " whilst Brougham defines it as " dictating a care of 



RUSSIA. 79 

nations most remotely situated, and apparently unconnected with 
ourselves." Then it would really appear, from the laudatory tone 
applied to the system by Vattel, who says that it is " such a 
disposition of things as that no one potentate or state shall be able 
absolutely to predominate and prescribe laws to the others," as 
well as from the complacent manner in which Brougham states 
" the general union which it has effected of all the European 
powers, obeying certain laws, and actuated in general by a common 
principle," — it would seem, from such assurances as these, that 
there was no necessity for that " perpetual attention to foreign 
affairs," or that " constant watchfulness over every nation," which 
the latter authority tells us the system "prescribes and inculcates." 
The only point on which these writers, in common with many 
other authors and speakers in favor of the balance of power, 
agree, is in the fundamental delusion that such a system was ever 
acceded to by the nations of Europe. To judge from the 
assumption, by Brougham, of a " general union among all the 
European powers," from the allusion made by Gentz to that 
" constitution subsisting among neighboring states," or from Vat- 
tel's reference to " a disposition of things" &c, one might be 
justified in inferring that a kind of federal union had existed for 
the last century throughout Europe, in which the several kingdoms 
had found, like the States of America, uninterrupted peace and 
prosperity. But we should like to know at what period of 
history such a compact amongst the nations of the continent was 
entered into ? Was it previously to the peace of Utrecht ? Was 
it antecedent to the Austrian war of succession ? Was it prior to 
the seven years' war, or to the American war ? Or did it exist 
during the French revolutionary wars ? Nay, what period of the 
centuries during which Europe has (with only just sufficient 
intervals to enable the combatants to recruit their wasted energies) 
been one vast and continued battle-field, will Lord Brougham fix 
upon to illustrate the salutary working of that " balancing 
system " which " places all national passions and antipathies in 
subjection to the fine and delicate view of remote expediency " ? 

Again, at what epoch did the nations of the continent subscribe 
to that constitution, "by virtue of which," according to Gentz, 



80 RUSSIA. 

11 no one among them can injure the independence or essential 
rights of another " ? Did this constitution exist whilst Britain 
was spoiling the Dutch at the Cape, or in the East ? — or when 
she dispossessed France of Canada ? — or (worse outrage by far) 
did it exist when England violated the " essential rights " of 
Spain, by taking forcible and felonious possession of a portion of 
her native soil ? * Had this constitution been subscribed by 
Russia, Prussia and Austria, at the moment when they signed the 
partition of Poland? — or by France, when she amalgamated with 
a portion of Switzerland? — by Austria, at the acquisition of 
Lombardy ? — by Puissia, when dismembering Sweden, Turkey 
and Persia ? — or by Prussia, before incorporating Silesia ? 

So far from any such confederation having ever been, by writ- 
ten, verbal or implied agreement, entered into by the " European 
powers, obeying certain laws, and actuated in general by a com- 
mon principle," the theory of the balance of power has, we 
believe, generally been interpreted, by those who, from age to 
age, have, parrot-like, used the phrase, to be a system invented 
for the very purpose of supplying the want of such a combination. 
Regarding it for a moment in this point of view, we should still 
expect to find that the " balancing system " had, at some period 
of modern history, been recognized and agreed to by all the con- 
tinental states ; and that it had created a spirit of mutual conces- 
sion and guarantee, by which the weaker and more powerful 
empires were placed upon a footing of equal security, and by 



* The conquests of colonies have been regarded with some complacency, 
because they are merely, in most instances, reprisals for previous depredations 
by the parent state: but England for fifty years at Gibraltar is a spectacle of 
brute violence, unmitigated by any such excuses. Upon no principle of 
morality can this unique outrage upon the integrity of an ancient, powerful 
and renowned nation, placed at a remote distance from our shores, be justi- 
fied. The example, if imitated, instead of being shunned, universally, would 
throw all the nations of the earth into barbarous anarchy, and deprive man- 
kind of the blessings of law, justice, and religion. It is time not only to think 
but to speak of these things in a spirit of honest truth. The people of this 
country, the middling and working classes, have no interest, as we shall 
by and by have to show, in these acts of unjust aggression and foreign 
violence. Alas for the cause of morals, if they had ! 



RUSSIA. 81 

which any one potentate or state was absolutely unable " to pre- 
dominate over the others." But, instead of any such self-denial;, 
we discover that the balance of Europe has merely meant (if it 
has had a meaning) that which our blunt Dutch king openly avowed 
as his aim to his Parliament — a desire on the part of the great 
powers to " hold the balance of Europe." England has, for nearly 
a century, held the European scales — not with the blindness of 
the goddess of justice herself, or with a view to the equilibrium 
of opposite interests, but with a Cyclopean eye to her own aggran- 
dizement. The same lust of conquest has actuated, up to the 
measure of their abilities, the other great powers; and, if we find 
the smaller states still, in the majority of instances, preserving 
their independent existence, it is owing not to the watchful 
guardianship of the " balancing system," but to the limits which 
nature herself has set to the undue extension of territorial domin- 
ion, not only by the physical boundaries of different countries, 
but in those still more formidable moral impediments to the 
invader, the unity of language, laws, customs and traditions; 
the instinct of patriotism and freedom ; the hereditary rights of 
rulers ; and though last, not least, that homage to the restraints of 
justice which nations and public bodies * have in all ages avowed, 
however they may have found excuses for evading it. 

So far, then, as we can understand the subject, the theory of a 
balance of power is a mere chimera, a creation of the politician's 
brain ; a phantasm, without definite form or tangible existence, 
a mere conjunction of syllables, forming words which convey 
sound without meaning. Yet these words have been echoed by 
the greatest orators and statesmen of England : they jingled suc- 
cessively from the lips of Bolingbroke, Chatham, Pitt, Burke, 
Fox, Sheridan, Grey and Brougham, — ay, even whilst we were 
in the act of stripping the maritime nations of the continent of 
their colonies, then regarded as the sole source of commercial 
greatness ; whilst we stood, sword in hand, upon the neck of Spain, 
or planted our standard on the rock of Malta; and even when 
England usurped the dominion of the ocean, and attempted to 

* " Mankind, although reprobates in detail, are always moralists in the 
gross." — Montesquieu. 



82 RUSSIA. 

extend the sphere of human despotism over another element, by 
insolently putting barriers upon that highway of nations — even 
then the tongues of our orators resounded most loudly with the 
praises of the "balance of power! "* There would be some- 
thing peculiarly humiliating, in connection with this subject, in 
beholding the greatest minds of successive ages, instead of exer- 
cising the faculty of thought, become the mere automata of 
authority, and retail, with less examination than the haberdasher 
bestows upon the length, breadth, and quality of his wares, the 
sentiments bequeathed from former generations of writers and 
speakers, but that, unhappily, the annals of philosophy and of 
past religions afford too many examples of the triumph of mere 
imitativeness over the higher faculties of the human intellect. 

We must not, however, pass over the " balance of power :} 
without at least endeavoring to discover the meaning of a phrase 
which still enters into the preamble of an annual act of Parlia- 
ment for raising and maintaining a standing army of ninety 
thousand men. The theory, according to the historian Robertson, 
was first invented by the Machiavellian statesmen of Italy during 
the prosperous era of the Florentine (miscalled) republic ; and it 
was imported into western Europe in the early part of the six- 
teenth century, and became " fashionable," to use the very word 
of the historian of Charles V., along with many other modes bor- 
rowed, about the same time, from that commercial and civilized 
people. This explanation of its origin does not meet with the 
concurrence of some other writers ; for it is singular, but still 
consistent with the ignis fatuus character of the " balance of 

* The phrase was actually adopted by Napoleon ! who told O'Meara, at St. 
Helena, that he refused to permit the Emperor Alexander to occupy the Dar- 
danelles, because, if Kussia were in possession of Turkey, the " balance of 
power " in Europe would be destroyed ! Lord Dudley Stuart sees much to 
admire in this regard to the balance of power by one who had himself been 
in military occupation of all the principal states of Europe : — "But the 
profound views of that great man, Napoleon, told him not to accede to either 
the demands or entreaties of Alexander; and, on that occasion, though he had 
invaded the Turkish empire himself, he saved it by refusing the passage of 
the Dardanelles to Russia; nay, he saved Europe itself." — Lord Stuart's 
speech, February 19. 



RUSSIA. 88 

power," that scarcely two authors agree, either as to the nature 
or the precise period of invention of the system. Lord Brougham 
claims for the theory an origin as remote as the time of the Athe- 
nians ; and Hume describes Demosthenes to have been the first 
advocate of the " balancing system ; " very recommendatory, 
remembering that ancient history is little else than a calendar of 
savage wars ! There can be little doubt, however, that the idea, 
by whomsoever or at whatever epoch conceived, sprang from that 
first instinct of our nature, fear, and originally meant at least 
some scheme for preventing the dangerous growth of the power 
of any particular state ; that power being always regarded, be 
it well remembered, as solely the offspring of conquest and 
aggrandizement ; notwithstanding, as we have had occasion to 
show in a former page of this pamphlet, in the case of England 
and the United States, that labor, improvements and discoveries, 
confer the greatest strength upon a people ; and that, by these 
alone, and not by the sword of the conqueror, can nations, in 
modern and all future times, hope to rise to supreme power and 
grandeur. And it must be obvious that a system professing to 
observe a " balance of power," by which, says Yattel, " no one 
potentate or state shall be able absolutely to predominate ; " or, 
according to Gentz, " to injure the independence or essential 
rights of another;" by which, says Brougham, "a perpetual 
attention to foreign affairs is inculcated, and a constant watchful- 
ness over every nation is prescribed," — it must be obvious that 
such a " balancing system," if it disregards those swiftest strides 
towards power which are making by nations excelling in mechan- 
ical and chemical science, industry, education, morality and free- 
dom, must be altogether chimerical. 

Lord Bacon, indeed, took a broader and more comprehensive 
view of this question, when he wrote, in his essay on empire, 
" First, for their neighbors, there can no general rule be given 
(the occasions are so variable) save one, which ever holdeth ; 
which is, that princes do keep due sentinel, that none of their 
neighbors do overgrow so (by increase of territory, by embracing 
of trade, by approaches, or the like) as they become more 
able to annoy them than they were ; and this is generally the 



84 



EUSSIA, 



work of standing councils, to see and to hinder it." This appears 
to us to be the only sound and correct view of such a principle as 
is generally understood by the phrase " the balance of power." It 
involves, however, such a dereliction of justice, and utter absence 
of conscientiousness, that subsequent writers upon the subject have 
not dared to follow out the principle of hindering the growth of 
trade, and the like (which includes all advance in civilization) ; 
although, to treat it in any other manner than that in which it 
is handled by this "wisest, greatest, meanest of mankind," is to 
abandon the whole system to contempt, as unsound, insufficient, 
and illusory.^ As for the rule of Lord Bacon, were the great 
enemy of mankind himself to summon a council, to devise a law 
of nations which should convert this fair earth, with all its 
capacity for life, enjoyment and goodness, into one vast theatre 
of death and misery, more dismal than his own dark Pandemonium, 
the very words of the philosopher would compose that law ! It 
would reduce us even below the level of the brute animals. They 
do not make war against their own instincts ; but this " rule " 
would, if acted upon universally, plunge us into a war of annihila- 
tion, with that instinct of progression which is the distinguishing 
nature of intellectual man. It would forbid all increase in knowl- 
edge, which, by the great writer's own authority, is power. It 
would interdict the growth of morality and freedom, which are 
power. Were Lord Bacon's " rule " enforced, not only would 
the uninstructed Russians commence a crusade against our steam- 
engines and our skilful artisans ; the still more barbarous Turk 
would be called upon to destroy the civilization and commerce of 
Petersburg ; the savage African would be warranted, nay, com- 

* Lord Bacon's political maxims are full of moral turpitude. " Nobody 
ean," says he, in speaking of kingdoms and estates, " be healthful without 
exercise, neither natural body nor politic ; and certainly to a kingdom or 
estate a just and honorable war is the true exercise." Accordingly, just 
wars are necessary ; and, as there must be an opposite party to a just war, 
ergo, unjust wars are necessary ! In speaking of kings, he calls them « mor- 
tal gods on earth." And, in his chapter on seditions and troubles, he gives 
many rules for governing and restraining but not one for instructing the 
people. We speak of the moral sentiments of this great man, distinctly from 
his intellectual powers. 



RUSSIA. 



86 



pelled to reduce the turbaned Osmanli to his own nakedness and 
a wigwam ; nor would the levelling strife cease until either the 
" rule " were abrogated, or mankind had been reduced to the only 
pristine possessions, teeth and nails ! ^ 

The balance of power, then, might, in the first place, be very 
well dismissed as a chimera, because no state of things, such as 
the " disposition," "constitution," or " union," of European powers, 
referred to, as the basis of their system, by Vattel, Gentz and 
Brougham, ever did exist ; and, secondly, the theory could, on 
other grounds, be discarded as fallacious, since it gives no defini- 
tion, — whether by breadth of territory, number of inhabitants, 
or extent of wealth, — according to which, in balancing the respect- 

* There appears to be one honorable member of the British legislature, and 
only one, who is an advocate of this policy. Sir Harry Verney, in speaking 
after Mr. T. Attwood, upon the subject of Russia (see Mirror of Parliament, 
1833, p. 2878), said, " The honorable gentleman has represented Russia as 
a state sunk in barbarism and ignorance, and hostile to every species of 
liberty. I would to God that such a description of Russia were correct. (/ / /) I 
believe the reverse to be the fact. I believe there is no power on earth which 
resorts to such effectual means of propagating her power, civilizing her 
country, promoting commerce, manufactures, the acquirement of useful in- 
formation, and the propagation of every useful institution, as Russia. Does 
the honorable gentleman know that at this moment steamboats navigate the 
Volga, and that you may travel in all parts of Russia in the same way as 
you may through the United States 1 Does the honorable gentleman know 
that the Emperor of Russia sends abroad agents, in whom he can confide, to 
obtain information relative to improvements and inventions which may be 
useful to himself 1 * * * * I am quite sure that, if this country would 
maintain the balance of power, we must oppose the encroachments of 
Russia." 

A Yankee punster would exclaim, » Sir Harry goes the whole hog with 
Bacon upon the ' balance of power ' ! " 

Yet Sir Harry is right. He and the noble author of the Novum Organum 
are the only two philosophers who have taken a true and consistent view of 
the question. We are far, however, from including them both under one 
rule of inculpation. The honorable member for Buckinghamshire errs, per- 
haps, intellectually, and not morally. His chief fault, or rather misfortune, 
is, that he lives in Buckingham. Let him and the Marquis of Chandos go 
through a course of Adam Smith and the economists, beginning with Harriet 
Martineau, and they will then be convinced that we cannot profit by the bar- 
barism of another people, or be injured by their progress in civilization, 
any more than the British nation can gain by the corn-laws . 

8 



RUSSIA. 



ive powers, each state shall be estimated ; whilst, lastly, it would 
be altogether incomplete and inoperative, from neglecting, or 
refusing to provide against, the silent and peaceful aggrandize- 
ments which spring from improvement and labor. Upon these 
triple grounds, the question of the balance of power might be 
dismissed from further consideration. We shall, however, assume, 
merely for the sake of argument, that such an equilibrium existed 
in complete efficiency; and the first inquiry that suggests itself 
is, Upon what principle is Turkey made a member of this Euro- 
pean system ? The Turks, at least, will be admitted by every- 
body to form no party to this "union;" nor do they give that 
" perpetual attention to foreign affairs which it inculcates ; " or, 
that " constant watchfulness over every nation which it pre- 
scribes." They never read of the balance of power in the Koran, 
and they live in pious and orthodox ignorance of the authorities 
for this " fine and delicate " theory ; for the names of Bacon, 
Vattel and Brougham, are nowhere recorded by the prophet ! 
Turkey cannot enter into the political system of Europe ; for the 
Turks are not Europeans. During the nearly four centuries that 
that people have been encamped upon the finest soil of the conti- 
nent, so far from becoming one of the families of Christendom, 
they have not adopted one European custom. Their habits are 
still oriental, as when they first crossed the Bosphorus. They 
scrupulously exclude their females from the society of the other 
sex ; they wear the Asiatic dress ; sit cross-legged, or loll upon 
couches, using neither chair nor bed; they shave their heads, 
retaining their beards ; and they use their fingers still, in the place 
of those civilized substitutes, knives and forks. Equally unin- 
fluenced, after nearly four hundred years' contact with Europeans, 
is the Osmanli's condition by the discoveries and improvements 
of modern times. A printing-press may be said to be unknown 
in Turkey ; or, if one be found at Constantinople, it is in the 
hands of foreigners. The steam-engine, gas, the mariner's com- 
pass, paper money, vaccination, canals, the spinning-jenny and 
railroads, are mysteries not yet dreamed about by Ottoman phi- 
losophers. Literature and science are so far from finding disciples 
amongst the Turks, that that people have been renowned as twice 



RUSSIA. 87 

the destroyers of learning : in the splendid though corrupt remains 
of Greek literature, at Constantinople ; and by extinguishing the 
dawn of experimental philosophy, at the subversion of the 
Caliphate. 

Down to within a few years of the present time, the Turks 
were viewed only as the scourge of Christian Europe. When, 
about a century and a half ago, Louis XIV. entered into an 
alliance with the Sublime Porte, the whole civilized world rung 
with indignation at the infamous and unnatural combination. 
And when, more than a century later, on the occasion of the 
capture of Ockzakow by the Russians, our most powerful minister 
(Pitt) proposed to forward succors to the aid of Turkey, such was 
the spirit of opposition manifested by the country, that the arma- 
ments already prepared by the government, under the sanction of a 
servile majority in the Parliament, were reluctantly countermanded. 
On that occasion, both Burke and Grey, although advocates of the 
balancing system, refused to acknowledge that the Turks formed 
parties to it. " He had never before heard it set forth," ^ said the 
former, " that the Turkish empire was considered as a part of the 
balance of power in Europe. They had nothing to do with Euro- 
pean power ; they considered themselves as wholly Asiatic. Where 
was the Turkish resident at our court, the court of Prussia, or of 
Holland ? They despised and contemned all Christian princes as 
infidels, and only wished to subdue and exterminate them and their 
people. What had these worse than savages to do with the powers 
of Europe, but to spread war, destruction and pestilence, amongst 
them ? All that was holy in religion, all that was moral and humane, 
demanded an abhorrence of everything that tended to extend the 
power of that cruel and wasteful empire. Any Christian power 
was to be preferred to these destructive savages. He had heard, 
with horror, that the emperor had been obliged to give up to this 
abominable power those charming countries which border upon the 
Danube, to devastation and pestilence." And, at a subsequent 
debate upon «the same question, t Mr. Grey (now Eaj;l Grey), 

* Burke's Speech, House of Commons, March 29, 1791. See Hansard's Par* 
lumentary History, vol. xxix. pp. 76, 77. 

f See Hansard's Parliamentary History, vol. xxix. p. 929. 



88 RUSSIA. 

who has been a still more zealous champion of the balance of 
power (having once declared that every peasant in England was 
deeply interested in its preservation), said "that England had 
pursued this object too far would not be denied, when it was 
considered that, in her progress after it, she had travelled as far 
as the banks of the Black Sea." 

And are the Turks of our own day less cruel or savage, that 
we should not only admit them within the pale of civilized nations, 
but impose on our people, for their, defence, the burden of 
enormous armaments ? We appeal to Doctor Walsh's late account 
of the atrocities perpetrated at Constantinople upon the unarmed 
Greeks, at the revolt of that people ; we refer to the horrible 
massacre of the peaceful and civilized population of Scio. Is 
this empire less wasteful now than when, forty-five years ago, 
Burke mourned over those fine provinces which were consigned 
to devastation and the crescent ? We again recur to the descrip- 
tion given to us by Walsh, and every other recent traveller, of 
the desolation that reigns throughout the Turkish dominions ; we 
adduce those ruined cities, those deserted though still fertile 
plains, and that population wasting away in regions where ten 
times its numbers once found abundance ; we point to the deplor- 
able condition of agriculture, commerce, manufactures, and all 
the arts of life, in a country which comprised the ancient civilized 
world, to prove the waste of human life, happiness, wealth and 
civilization, that is suffered every year at the hands of this Ma- 
hometan government. Has the pestilence ceased to ravage the 
Turkish territory ? The quarantine now blockades, in a manner, 
from Christian Europe, Constantinople, — standing upon the same 
latitude as Naples, Oporto and New York, and chosen by Con- 
stantine as the most salubrious spot on earth, — a city now the 
impure nurse and victim of the plague ! Does Christianity or 
public virtue call upon us, in 1836, more than they did in 1791, 
to arm ourselves in behalf of Turkey ? We point to the Koran 
and thosg orthodox vices which it inculcates, — we refer to the 
slave-trade and to polygamy, abominations which still flourish in 
that country, under the precept of the impostor of Mecca, — to 
prove that neither religion nor morality can sanction the govern- 



RUSSIA. 89 

merit of Great Britain in shedding a drop of the blood, or lavish- 
ing the treasure of Englishmen, for the support of this " cruel," 
" savage," " wasteful," " devastating," " pestilential " and " infi- 
del " nation, in a conflict with Russia, or any other Christian 
people. 

There remains one, and but one, other point from which to 
view the question of the balance of power ; and we may then bid 
adieu to this monument of the credulity and facility of the human 
intellect forever ; or, at least, until we happen, perchance, to 
meet with it in the next year's mutiny bill, supplying the 
" whereas " of an act of Parliament with a pretence for main- 
taining a standing army of upwards of ninety thousand men ! 

Russia, in possession of Constantinople, say the alarmists, 
would possess a port open at all seasons ; the materials for con- 
structing ships ; vast tracts of fertile land, capable of producing 
cotton, silk, wool, &c. ; and she would be placed in a situation of 
easy access to our shores, — all of which would tend to destroy 
the balance of power, and put in danger the interests of the 
British commerce, in particular. But New York, a port far more 
commodious than Constantinople, is open at all seasons ; the 
United States possess materials without end for ship-building ; 
their boundless territory of fertile land is adapted for the growth 
of cotton, silk, wool, &c. ; and New York is next door to Liver- 
pool ; for, thanks to Providence ! there is no land intervening 
between the American continent and the shores of this United 
Kingdom. Yet, we have never heard that the North American 
continent forms any part of the balance of power ! Twenty-four 
sovereign, free and independent states, altogether forgotten in a 
" balancing system, which dictates an increasing care even of 
nations most remotely situated, and apparently unconnected with 
ourselves " ! We doubt the equilibrium can hardly be maintained. 
This is not all. There is the entire southern continent, from the 
Isthmus of Panama to the point of Cape Horn, likewise entirely 
omitted. Mercy on us ! one scale will certainly kick the beam ! 
Twelve separate empires of South America, bounded on one 
extremity by Mexico, and on the other by Patagonia ; and the 
vast expanse of territory, settled and unsettled, under the domin- 
8* 



90 



RUSSIA. 



ion of the government of Washington, and, altogether, comprising 
one-third of the habitable globe, have been quite forgotten in a 
balance of power ! 

Not having been supplied by the authors of the theory with 
any rule by which to judge of their mode of estimating or weigh- 
ing the powers of the respective parties to the balancing system, 
and being equally uninformed as to the qualifications required 
from those states which aspired to the union, it would be pre- 
sumptuous to guess upon what principle Turkey is admitted to a 
connection with England, from which Brazil is excluded ; or why, 
in forming a balance of the civilized powers, the United States 
are rejected, in order to give room to admit Russia into one of 
the scales. It cannot be from proximity that Turkey is pre- 
ferred to the Brazils. A voyage from Rio Janeiro to Liverpool 
will average about forty days ; whilst the time taken in going 
from England to Constantinople usually reaches double that 
period. Nor can it arise from a comparison of our commerce 
with the two countries, which is four times as valuable with the 
American as the European state. Then a wise and provident 
regard to the future cannot be the guiding motive, since the pros- 
pect is altogether in favor of the transatlantic empire, which 
embraces within its bounds a territory equalling in extent the 
whole of Russia in Europe, and forming the finest, and destined 
in all probability to be, both as respects vegetable and mineral 
riches, the most productive, amongst all the countries of the world. 
Religion, language, national character, and the plague, all oppose 
the claim of the Turk to this preference over the Christian rival ; 
and we can only suspend our conjectures, and entreat that some 
advocate of the " balancing system " will inform the world upon 
what principle, commercial, social or political, — in short, upon 
what ground, consistent with common-sense, — does the foreign 
secretary involve Great Britain in the barbarian politics of the 
Ottoman government, to the manifest risk of future wars, and the 
present pecuniary sacrifice attending standing armaments ; whilst, 
with another state, with which we are more deeply interested as 
traders, more identified as men, and from which we are, navally 
speaking, less distant, no political intercourse is found necessary ? 



RUSSIA. 91 

The same argument applies, with more or less force, to the other 
eleven South American states, with each of which our commerce 
averages, probably, more in amount than with Turkey; yet, 
although they are Christian communities, all but universally at 
peace,^ and notwithstanding the future influence which they are 
inevitably destined to exercise over the interests of the entire 
world, these countries have not been thought worthy of admis- 
sion into that system of civilized nations which is now agitated 
from one extremity to the other with the fate of Mahometan 
Turkey ! However impossible it may be to speculate successfullv 
upon the intended operation of a system which, in reality, never 
existed except in the precincts of the politician's brain, still it 
must be remembered that, at the time the theory was first 
invented, it proposed to give to the European powers owning 
American colonies a weight proportioned to the extent of those 
possessions ; and the question then arises, — which we shall 
merely propound, and leave, in despair, for the solution of such 
of our readers as may wish to pursue this chimerical inquiry still 
further, — by what ingenious process was the balance of power 

* We add an extract from a letter, dated January 26, 1836, addressed to 
the author by a friend, — a gallant officer, and an enlightened and amiable 
man, who, himself, holds an offioial rank at the British court from one of the 
states of South America. 

'« You, who are so strong an advocate for peace and freedom, will be glad to 
hear of the tranquillity of America, and that our systems of government are 
at last working well. Of the thirteen transatlantic republics, ten are now in 
a perfect state of order and prosperity. The capture of Puerto Cabello from 
a banditti who are in possession of it will restore that of Venezuela, and 
the next news from Peru will give us that of the peaceable settlement of its 
government. Mexico, therefore, will alone remain an exception to this peace- 
ful state ; and I am afraid she will long remain so : yet, in spite of the 
troubles of Mexico, she last year raised from her mines (according to the 
official report of the minister of finance, and without including what was 
smuggled) thirty millions of dollars, in gold and silver, being three millions 
more than was ever produced under the most flourishing year of the old 
Spanish government. As to the national debts of America, the bonds of the 
United States were used to be sold by basketfuls in the first years of their 
independence, yet they have now paid off the whole. 

" You have about fourteen principal nations in Europe, and you know two 
or three of them have internal dissensions." 



92 RUSSIA. 

preserved, when England, Spain and Portugal, were deprived of 
their transatlantic territories ? Canning, indeed, once talked of 
11 calling into existence a new world, to adjust the balance of the 
old;" but, as in many other oratorical flourishes of our state- 
rhetorician, he meant quite a different practical object : in other 
and more homely language, that statesman proposed to acknowl- 
edge the independence of South America, ten years after every 
private individual of judgment had predicted the freedom of that 
continent. To this day those states, which once formed so im- 
portant a part of the balancing system, as appendages to the 
mother countries, are wanting in the scales of Europe; and by 
what arts, whether by false weights or the legerdemain of the 
nation still holding the balance, the equilibrium can be preserved 
without them, constituting as they do nearly one-third of the ter- 
restrial globe, is a mystery beyond the reach of our powers of 
divination. 

We glanced at the comparative claims of Russia and the 
United States to be included in this imaginary States-union : a 
very few words upon this point are all that we shall add to our 
probably already too extended notice of the " balance of power.'* 

Upon whatever principle the theory under consideration may 
have been at first devised, — whether, according to Gentz, for the 
purpose of uniting neighboring states, or, as Brougham asserts, 
with a view to the union of all the European powers, — it is cer- 
tain that it would have been held fatal to the success of the bal- 
ancing system for any one power, and that one amongst the most 
civilized, wealthy and commercial, to have refused to subscribe to 
its constitution. Yet the United States (for the number of its 
inhabitants), the richest, the most commercial, and, for either 
attack or defence, the most powerful of modern empires, — a coun- 
try which possesses a wider surface of fertile land than Russia 
could boast even with the accession of Turkey, and, instead of 
being imprisoned, like Russia, by the Dardanelles and the Sound, 
owning five thousand miles of coast, washed by two oceans, and 
open to the whole world, — the United States are not parties to 
the balance of power ! Ignorant as we are of the rule of admission 
to and exclusion from this balancing system, it would be vain to 



RUSSIA. 98 

conjecture why Russia should be entitled, not only to be a mem- 
ber of this union, but to engross its exclusive attention, whilst 
North America is unknown or not recognized as of any weight 
in the balance of power. It cannot be, on our part, from closer 
neighborhood ; for Russia, even at Constantinople, would, com- 
mercially and navally speaking, be three times as distant as New 
York from Great Britain. Nor on account of the greater amount 
of the European commerce transacted by Russia. The commerce 
of the United States with the countries of Europe is nearly as 
great in amount as that of the British empire with the continent, 
twice as large as the trade of France with the same quarters, and 
three times that of Russia. It cannot be because of the more 
important nature of the trade which we carry on with Russia as 
compared with that with America ; since the cotton of the latter 
gives employment and subsistence to more than a million of our 
people, and is actually indispensable to our commercial and polit- 
ical existence. Here are cogent reasons why the transatlantic 
power should form a party to the union of states, — why, at least, 
it should, in place of an empire situated upon the Baltic or Black 
Sea, be united in political bands with Great Britain. And 
wherefore is this rich, commercial, and this contiguous country — 
with a population more entirely enlightened than any besides, 
and whose improvements and institutions England and all Europe 
are eager to emulate — an alien to the " balancing system/' of 
which Turkey, Spain and Persia, are members ? It would be dif- 
ficult to find any other satisfactory answer than that which we 
are able to give as the reason of this exclusion : America, with 
infinite wisdom, refuses to be a party to the " balance of power ." 
Washington (who could remember when the national debt of 
England was under fifty-five millions ; who saw it augmented, by 
the Austrian war of succession, to seventy-eight millions; and 
again increased, by the seven years' war, to one hundred and 
forty-six millions ; and who lived to behold the first fruits of the 
French revolutionary wars, with probably a presentiment of the 
harvest of debt and oppression that was to follow; — whose pater- 
nal eye looked abroad only with the patriotic hope of finding, in 
the conduct of other nations, example or warning for the instruc- 



94 RUSSIA. 

tion of his countrymen), seeing the chimerical objects for which 
England, although an island, plunged into the contentions of the 
continent, with no other result to her suffering people but an 
enduring and increasing debt, — bequeathed, as a legacy to his 
fellow-citizens, the injunction that they should never be tempted, 
by any inducements or provocations, to become parties to the 
states' system of Europe. And faithfully, zealously and hap- 
pily, has that testament been obeyed ! Down even to our day, 
the feeling and conviction of the people, and consequently of the 
government and the authors * of the United States, have con- 

* Washington Irving has good-humoredly satirized this national propensity 
for foreign politics, in the well-known sketch of " John Bull." " He is," 
3ays that exquisite writer, " a busy-minded personage, who thinks, not 
merely for himself and family, but for all the country round, and is most 
generously disposed to be everybody's champion. He is continually volun- 
teering his services to settle his neighbors' affairs, and takes it in great dud- 
goon if they engage in any matter of consequence without asking his advice ; 
though he seldom engages in any friendly office of the kind without finishing 
by getting into a squabble with all parties, and then railing bitterly at their 
ingratitude. He unluckily took lessons in his youth in the noble science of 
defence ; and having accomplished himself in the use of his limbs and 
weapons [that is, standing armies and navies'], and become a perfect master at 
boxing and cudgel play, he has had a troublesome life of it ever since. He 
cannot hear of a quarrel between the most distant of his neighbors, but he 
begins incontinently to fumble with the head of his cudgel, and consider 
whether interest or honor does not require that he should meddle in their 
broils. Indeed, he has extended his relations of pride and policy so com- 
pletely over the whole country [that is, by quadripartite treaties and quintuple 
alliances'], that no event can take place without infringing some of his finely- 
spun rights and dignities. Couched in his little domain, with those filaments 
stretching forth in every direction, he is like some choleric, bottle-bellied old 
spider, who has woven his web over a whole chamber, so that a fly cannot 
buzz, nor a breeze blow, without startling his repose, and causing him to sally 
forth wrathfully from his den. Though really a good-tempered, good-hearted 
old fellow at bottom, yet he is singularly fond of being in the midst of con- 
tention. It is one of his peculiarities, however, that he only relishes the 
beginning of an affray ; he always goes into a fight with alacrity, but comes 
out of it grumbling, even when victorious ; and, though no one fights with 
more obstinacy to carry a contested point, yet, when the battle is over, and he 
comes to a reconciliation, he is so much taken up with the mere shaking of 
hands [Lord Castlereagh at the treaty of Vienna], that he is apt to let his 
antagonists pocket all they have been grumbling about. It is not, therefore, 
fighting that he ought to be so much on his guard against as making friends. 



RUSSIA. 



95 



stantly increased in favor of a policy from which so much wealth, 
prosperity and moral greatness, have sprung. America, for fifty 
years at peace, with the exception of two years of defensive war, 
is a spectacle of the beneficent effects of that policy which may be 
comprised in the maxim, As little intercourse as possible betwixt 
the governments, as much connection as possible between the 
?iations, of the world. And when England (without being a repub- 
lic) shall be governed upon the same principles of regard for the 
interests of the people, and a like common-sense view of the 
advantages of its position, we shall adopt a similar motto for our 
policy ; and then we shall hear no more mention of that costly 
chimera, the balance of power. 

... All that I wish is, that John's present troubles may teach him more 
prudence in future [nothing of the kind : look at him now, fifteen years after 
this was written, playing the fool again, ten times worse than ever, in Spain]; that 
he may cease to distress his mind about other people's affairs ; that he may 
give up the fruitless attempt to promote the good of his neighbors, and the 
peace and happiness of the world, by dint of the cudgel ; that he may remain 
quietly at home ; gradually get his house into repair ; cultivate his rich 
estate according to his fancy; husband his income — if he thinks proper ; 
bring his unruly children into order — if he can." — Sketch Book. 



CHAPTER IV. 

PROTECTION OF COMMERCE. 

Contents. — Protection of our Commerce no just Pretext for maintaining 
enormous Armaments. — Our Manufactures the true Source of our Com- 
mercial Greatness. — Curious Illustration of the Uselessness of Military 
and Naval Power, for the Protection of our Commerce against the Rivalry 
of better and cheaper Articles than ours. — Mutual Dependence of Britain 
and the United States on each other. — Prodigious Traffic between these 
two Countries. — Instance of our being driven out of our own fortified 
Market of Gibraltar, by the Competition of an unarmed Rival. — Former 
Monopoly of the Sea possessed by Britain. — Its Consequences, the Na- 
tional Debt, and the Instigation of other Nations to commence Manufac- 
turing. — The American and French Manufactures avowedly called into 
Competition with ours by Recollections of British Tyranny at Sea. — Prog- 
ress of the American Cotton Manufacture. — Absurdity of all Apprehen- 
sions of Foreign Invasion. — Cost of the Armaments for the Protection of 
our Commerce — in the Mediterranean — on the West India Station. — 
Causes and Consequences of British Wars. — No Class of Society really 
benefited by War. — Non-intervention in Foreign Wars the true Policy of 
Britain. •*— Superiority of the Influence of British Example, while culti- 
vating the Arts of Peace, to British Violence or Intimidation. — A Word 
at Parting to the Reader. 

We began the preceding remarks upon a question which, how- 
ever universally recognized in former times, has now almost fallen 
into neglect, by quoting a passage from the last speech of King 
William III. to his Parliament ; and, before proceeding to dis- 
cuss that other, but still more popular, pretence for wars and 
standing armaments, the protection of our commerce^ we shall 
give an extract or two from the latest (though we sincerely hope 
not the last) address of William IV. to his Reformed Parliament, 
delivered on the 4th February, 1836: 

" I continue to receive from my allies, and, generally, from all 



RUSSIA. 97 

foreign powers, assurances of their unaltered desire to cultivate 
with me those friendly relations which it is equally my wish to 
maintain with them ; and the intimate union which happily sub- 
sists between this country and France is a pledge to Europe for 
the continuation of general peace." 

After the above passage, which contains, one would suppose, 
ample guarantees against war, — since it not only conveys assur- 
ances of the peaceful disposition of all foreign powers towards 
this country, but adds, by way of making those assurances doubly 
sure, that the union which happily subsists between England and 
France is a pledge for the continuance of a general peace, — 
comes the following : 

" The necessity of maintaining the maritime strength of the 
country, and of giving adequate protection to the extended com- 
merce of my subjects, has occasioned some increase in the esti- 
mates for the naval branch of the public service." 

Now, if we felt some difficulty in apprehending the question of 
the " balancing principle," we confess ourselves to be much more 
at a loss to understand what is here meant by the protection of 
commerce through an increase in the navy estimates. Our com- 
merce is, in other words, our manufactures ; and the first inquiry 
which occurs necessarily is, Do we need an augmentation of the 
naval force, in order to guard our ingenious artisans and indus- 
trious laborers, or to protect those precious results of their 
mechanical genius, the manufactories of our capitalists ? This 
apprehension vanishes, if we refer to the assurances held out, in 
the above double guarantee for the continuance of peace, that our 
shores are safe from foreign aggression. The next idea that sug- 
gests itself is, Does piracy increase the demand for vessels of 
war ? We, who write in the centre of the largest export trade 
in the world, have not heard of even one complaint of violence 
done to British interests upon the ocean ; and probably there are 
not to be found a dozen professed freebooters upon the face of the 
aquatic globe. South America demands no addition to the force 
upon its coasts at the present moment, when those several gov- 
ernments are more firmly organized, and foreign interests conse- 
quently more secure, than at any previous period. China presents 
9 



98 RUSSIA. 

no excuse ; for her policy is, fortunately for her territorial integ- 
rity, invulnerable to foreign attempts at " intervention." The 
rest of Asia is our own. Where, then, shall we seek for a solu- 
tion of the difficulty, or how account for the necessity which 
called for the increase of our naval strength ? 

The commerce of this country, we repeat, is, in other words, 
its manufactures. Our exports do not consist, as in Mexico or 
Brazil, of the produce of our soil and our mines ; or, as in France 
and the United States, of a mixture of articles of agricultural 
and manufacturing origin : but they may be said to be wholly 
produced by the skill and industry of the manufacturing popula- 
tion of the United Kingdom.^ Upon the prosperity, then, of 
this interest, hangs our foreign commerce, on which depends our 
external rank as a maritime state ; our customs-duties, which are 
necessary to the payment of the national debt ; and the supply 
of every foreign article of our domestic consumption, every 
pound of tea, sugar, coffee or rice, and all the other commodities 
consumed by the entire population of these realms. In a word, 
our national existence is involved in the well-doing of our 
manufacturers. If our readers — many of whom will be of the 
agricultural class, but every one of them, nevertheless, equally 
interested in the question — should ask, as all intelligent and 
reasoning minds ought to do, To what are we indebted for this 
commerce ? — we answer, in the name of every manufacturer and 
merchant of the kingdom, The cheapness alone of our manu- 
factures. Are we asked, How is this trade protected, and by 
what means can it be enlarged ? The reply still is, By the cheap- 
ness of our manufactures. Is it inquired how this mighty indus- 
try, upon which depends the comfort and existence of the whole 
empire, can be torn from us? — we rejoin, Only by the greater 
cheapness of the manufactures of another country. These truths 
are, we presume, very well known to the government of Great 
Britain ; at least, one member of the present cabinet is vigilantly 
alive to their momentous character, as we are going to show, by 

* We stated this familiar fact in a former pamphlet ; but it is one that 
cannot be too frequently plaoed broadly before the publie eye. 



RUSSIA. 99 

referring to a fact coming within our personal experience, and 
which bears pointedly upon the question in hand. 

The directors of the Chamber of Commerce of Manchester (of 
which board the author has the honor of being a member) were 
favored, a short time since, with a communication from the Right 
Hon. C. P. Thomson, accompanied by an assortment of samples 
of various fabrics, which, in the diligent fulfilment of his official 
duties, he had caused to be procured from the several manufac- 
turing districts of the continent ; and requesting a report as to 
the comparative relation which, after due examination, they might 
be found to bear towards the manufactures of England. Among 
these, were patterns of Swiss Turkey-red chintz prints, and of 
mixed cotton and linen Saxony drills, — both of which commod- 
ities have been, for some time, sold in those quarters, — superior, 
both in cheapness and quality, to similar articles produced in this 
country ; and, consequently, in reporting to the Board of Trade, 
the directors of the Chamber of Commerce had the disagreeable 
duty of stating that, in those particular products of the loom and 
printing-machine, we were beaten by our foreign rivals, and su- 
perseded in third or neutral markets. The causes of the advan- 
tages thus possessed over us by our competitors on the continent, 
and which were pointed out to the attention of the Right Hon- 
orable President, are the heavy imposts still fettering our manu- 
facturing energies, and the greater cost of the food of our work- 
men : the remedy is, obviously, a reduction of the duties on 
com, oil, soap, &c. But if, instead of naming such causes and 
remedies as these, the Manchester Chamber of Commerce had 
stated, in its report, that the prints of Switzerland and the drills 
of Saxony (the governments of which two countries do not to- 
gether own a ship of war, as we believe) were cheaper than the 
like articles fabricated here, because the British navy was not 
sufficiently strong, and had advised, for relief, that half a million 
a year should be added to the navy estimates, would not a writ 
de lunatico inquirendo have justly been issued against those intel- 
ligent directors, the writer's colleagues, without further evidence 
of their insanity ? Yet, having seen that the only way in which 
we can protect our commerce is by the cheapness of our manu- 



100 RUSSIA. 

factures, what other object can be meant, when the government 
calls for an augmentation of the navy, with a view to the protec- 
tion of our commerce, but some plan, however inappreciable to 
common minds, for reducing the expenditure of the country, and 
thereby relieving us from some of the burdensome imposts with 
which our race of competition is impeded? 

But there is, in the second passage which we have just quoted 
from his Majesty's speech, a part which tends to throw more light 
upon the whole, where it refers to the necessity of giving ade- 
quate protection to the u extended " commerce of the country. 
By which we are to infer that it is the principle of the govern- 
ment that the extension of our trade with foreign countries 
demands, for its protection, a corresponding augumentation of the 
royal navy. This, we are aware, was the policy of the last cen- 
tury, during the greater part of which the motto, " Ships, Colo- 
nies and Commerce,"^ was borne upon the national escutcheon, 
became the watchword of statesmen, and was the favorite senti- 
ment of public writers ; but this, which meant, in other words, 
" Men of war to conquer colonies, to yield us a monopoly of 
their trade," must now be dismissed, like many other equally 
glittering but false adages of our forefathers, and in its place we 
must substitute the more homely but enduring maxim, — Cheap- 
ness, which will command commerce, and whatever else is needful 
will follow in its train. 

At a time when all beyond the precincts of Europe was colonial 
territory, and when the trade of the world was, with the excep- 
tion of China, almost wholly forced into false channels, by the 
hand of violence, which was no sooner withdrawn than, by its own 
inherent law, — the law of nature, — it again sought its proper 
level course, the increase of^the navy necessarily preceded and 
accompanied an extension of our commeree. The policy of na- 
tions then, if judged by the standard which we apply to the 
conduct of individuals now, — and there can be no exculpation in 
multitudinous immorality, — was, to waylay their customers, whom 

* This is still a favorite toast at the annual meetings of the Pitt clubs, 
drunk by those consistent politicians who will not yield even to the inexora 
ble reforms of trade. 



RUSSIA. 101 

they first knocked down and disabled, and afterwards dragged into 
their stores, and compelled to purchase whatever article they chose 
to offer, at such prices as they chose to ask ! The independ- 
ence of the New World has forever put an end to the colonial 
policy of the Old, and, with it, that system of fraud and violence 
which for centuries characterized the commercial intercourse of 
the two hemispheres. And in that portentous truth, the Ameri- 
cans are free, teeming as it does with future change, there is 
nothing that more nearly affects our destiny than the total revolu- 
tion which it dictates to the statesmen of Great Britain in the 
commercial, colonial^ and foreign policy of our government. 
America is once more the theatre upon which nations are contend- 
ing for mastery : it is not, however, a struggle for conquest, 
in which the victor will acquire territorial dominion, — the fight 
is for commercial supremacy, and the battle will be won by the 
cheapest. 

Whilst our trade rested upon our foreign dependencies, as was 
the case at the middle of the last century, — whilst, in other 
words, force and violence were necessary to command customers 
for our manufactures, — it was natural and consistent that almost 
every king's speech should allude to the importance of protecting 
the commerce of the country, by means of a powerful navy ; 
but whilst, under the present more honest principles of trade, 
cheapness alone is necessary to command free and independent 
purchasers, and to protect our commerce, it must be evident that 
such armaments as impose the smallest possible tax upon the cost 
of our commodities must be the best adapted for the protection of 

* We shall not enter upon the subject of the profit and loss of our colonies, 
which would require a volume. An acute writer of the day estimates the 
annual loss by our dependencies at something like four millions ; but he loses 
sight altogether of the interest of the money spent in conquering them, which 
is twenty or thirty millions a year more. Leaving these unprofitable specula- 
tions as to the past, let us beg our readers to look at a chart of the world, 
and, after comparing the continent of free America with the specks of islands 
forming our colonial possessions, to ask himself whether, in choosing our 
future commercial course, the statesman who presides at the helm of affairs 
ought to take that policy for his guide which shall conduct us to the market 
of the entire hemisphere, or that which prefers the minute fraction of it. 



K0B8IA. 

our trade. B dictating the disuse of warlike establish- 

ments, free trade (for of that beneficent doctrine we an 
arras its votaii irn pacific nature, in that eternal truth, 

the more any nation traffics abroad upon free and hone. 
U it will be in danger of wars. 

pay of example, we refer to the present commercial 
intercourse between the i;d this empire, how com- 

pletely dc ate the force of the above maxin 

period of I - ople, aliens to each other by birth, 

government, laws and institutions, united indissolubly by one 
common interest and mutual dependence, like these di 
nations. One-third* of our whole export 
manufactures, the raw material of which is produced from the 
soil of the Uni( . More than a million of our population 

depend upon the due supply of this cotton wool for the la ; 
every succeeding day, and for the regular payment of their 
week sometimes hear objections against the free 

importation of corn made on the ground that we should be- 
come dependent upon foreigners for bread ; but here we fa 
million of people, whose power of purchasing not only bread, but 
meat, ay, or even potato . as clothing, is supplied from 

the annual growth of lands posses- independent nation, 

more than three thousand miles off. The equilibrium t of this 
stupendous industry aa punctual arrival, from 

:iited States, of a quantity ot n, averaging fifteen 

thousand! bales weekly, or more than two thousand bales a day; 
and it dep upon the equally constant weekly departure 

of more than a quarter of a million. rth of cotton _ 

ted to foreign w. what preca :en by the 

* About one-half of oar exports is of cotton origin ; bat we take one- 
third ■ ":ed up from North American material. 

men, who talk so eloquently in fa* 
going to war the equilibrium of Europe, or the balance of power 

in Turkey, would eond _• ire a thought as to its effects upon the 

equilibrium of our cotton manufacture. 

da our illuftratire remarks to that part which we asrume to be 
the growth of the United States ; the total of our imports and exports of 
f course, more than stated here. 



RUSSIA. 103 

government of this country to guard and regulate this precious 
flood of traflic ? How many of these costly vessels of war, which 
are maintained at an expense to the nation of many millions 
of pounds annually, do our readers suppose, are stationed at 
the mouths of the Mersey and Clyde, to welcome and convoy 
into Liverpool and Glasgow the merchant ships from 
York, Charleston or New Orleans, all bearing the inestimable 
freight of cotton wool, upon which our commercial and social 
existence depends ? Not one ! What portion of our standing 
army, costing seven millions a year, is occupied in defending this 
more than Pactolus — this golden stream of trade, on which 
floats not only the wealth, but the hopes and existence, of a great 
community ? Four invalids, at the Perch Rock battery, hold the 
sinecure office of defending the port of Liverpool ! But our ex- 
ports to the United States will reach, this year, perhaps, in real 
or declared value, more than ten millions sterling, and nearly 
one-half of this amount goes to New York : — what portion of 
the royal navy is stationed off that port, to protect our merchants' 
ships and cargoes ? The appearance of a king's ship at New 
York is an occurrence of such rarity as to attract the especial 
notice of the public journals; whilst, along the entire Atlantic- 
coast of the United States — extending, as it does, more than 
three thousand miles, to which we send a quarter of our whole 
yearly exports — there are stationed two^ British ships of war 
only, and these two have also their station at the West Indies. 
No ! this commerce, unparalleled in magnitude, between two 
remote nations, demands no armament as its guide or safeguard ; 
nature herself is both. And will one rational mind recognize 
the possibility of these two communities putting a sudden stop to 
such a friendly traflic, and, contrary to every motive of self-inter- 
est, encountering each other as enemies ? Such a rupture would 
be more calamitous to England than the sudden drying up of the 
river Thames ; and more intolerable to America than the cessa- 

* See the United Service Journal for June, 1836, for a list of the ships of war 
and their stations, June 1st : — North America and West India stations, on© 
seventy -four and one fifty-two guns. 



104 RUSSIA. 

tion of sunshine and rain over the entire surface of one of her 
maritime states ! 

And if such is the character of free trade (or, in other words, 
all trade between independent nations) that it unites, by the 
strongest motives of which our nature is susceptible, two remote 
communities, rendering the interest of the one the only true 
policy of the other, and making each equally anxious for the 
prosperity and happiness of both, — and if, moreover, every addi- 
tion to the amount of traffic between two independent states 
forges fresh fetters, which rivet more securely these amicable 
bonds, — how can the extension of our commerce call for an in- 
crease in our armaments, or how will a government stand excused 
from the accusation of imposture, unless by the plea of ignorance, 
when it calls for an augmentation of the navy estimates, under 
the pretence of protecting our extended commerce ? 

But, to put this matter in another point of view, let us sup- 
pose that this mighty traffic between England and the United 
States, which is wholly governed by the talismanic law of " cheap- 
ness," were suddenly interrupted, in the only way in which it can 
be disturbed — by some other people producing cheaper hard- 
ware, woollens, pottery, &c, to whom the Americans, guided 
solely by that self-interest which controls alike the commerce of 
every nation, could sell their cotton for a greater amount of those 
manufactures in return — could our royal navy, were it even 
augmented to ten-fold its present monstrous force, protect us from 
the loss of our commerce ? To answer this question, we need 
only appeal to the experience of facts to be found at this time 
operating in another quarter. 

At the moment when we write, the British naval force stationed 
in the Mediterranean amounts to thirty-six vessels of war,^ mount- 
ing altogether one thousand three hundred and twenty guns, being 
rather more than a third of the death-dealing metal afloat in our 
king's ships. Our entire trade to all the nations bordering on 
this sea, and including the whole of that with Spain and France, 

* See the United Service Journal, June 1, 1836, for a list of the stations of 
the British navy. 



RUSSIA. 105 

amounts to very nearly the same as our exports to the United 
States — in value and importance, however, it is not equal to the 
latter. Now, leaving for the present the question of the profita- 
bleness of carrying on a traffic with such heavy protecting ex- 
penses annexed, let us proceed to ascertain whether or not this 
prodigious and costly navy affords an efficient protection to our 
commerce in those quarters. The reader will bear in mind our 
statement that the Chamber of Commerce of Manchester had the 
unpleasant task of reporting to the Board of Trade that the drill 
manufacturers of Saxony and the calico printers of Switzerland 
had superseded goods of the same descriptions, made in England, 
in third or neutral markets : — those markets were in the Medi- 
terranean ! This is not all. One of those markets from which 
our manufactures were reported to have' been expelled, by a de- 
cree of far more potency than was penned by the hand of violence 
at Berlin and Milan, and prohibited by an interdict ten times 
more powerful than ever sprang from the Prussian league — the 
interdict of dearness: — one of those markets was Gibraltar ! ! 
(We promised, a few pages back, to prove that the industrious 
middling and working classes of this empire have no interest in 
the violent and unjust seizure and retention of an integral portion 
of the Spanish territory ; and we have, in this simple fact, re- 
deemed our pledge.) We give it to the reflecting portion of our 
readers, as a truth authenticated by the very best authority, and 
worthy of deep attention from the economist, the statesman, and 
the advocate of peace and of a moral ascendency over physical 
force, that the artisans of Switzerland and Saxony have achieved 
a victory over the manufacturers of England, upon her own for- 
tress, the free port of Gibraltar ! We kiss the rod ; we dote 
upon this fact, which teaches, through us, a lesson to mankind, 
of the inefficacy of brute violence in the trading concerns of 
the world. Let us pause, then, to recapitulate our facts. On the 
one hand, behold a commerce with America, amounting to the 
quarter of the whole trade of the kingdom, — upon which depends, 
from week to week, the subsistence of a million of people, and 
whereon rests our very existence as a commercial empire, — con- 
ducted regularly, day by day, without the aid or intervention of 



106 RUSSIA. 

ships of war, to guide or coerce it ; on the other, an armament, 
avowedly to protect our commerce, of one thousand three hundred 
and twenty cannon, unable to guard our manufactures against the 
successful cheapness of the poorest, the weakest and humblest 
community of the continent, — a community destitute of fleets, 
and without a standing army. The inference is plain, — we 
have succeeded in establishing our premises ; for, having proved 
that the (physically speaking) impregnable fortress of Gibraltar, 
with its triple lines of batteries, aided by thirty-six vessels of 
war, and altogether combining a greater quantity of artillery than 
was put in requisition to gain the victory of Waterloo, Trafalgar 
or the Nile, surrenders our commerce into the hands of the Swiss 
and Saxons, unable to protect us against the cheaper commodities 
of those countries, we need not go further to show, since these 
two countries, without navies, are our witnesses of the facts, that 
armed fleets, armies and fortresses, are not essential to the exten- 
sion of commerce, and that they do not possess the power of pro- 
tecting it against the cheapness of rivals. These may appear 
trite and familiar truths to our intelligent readers ; our justifica- 
tion may be found, if needed, in the fact that the government has 
demanded and obtained an addition to our navy estimates, this 
session of Parliament, amounting to nearly half a million sterling 
per annum, under the pretence of protecting our commerce ; and 
we do not recollect that one of our representatives rose from his 
seat to tell the minister, as we now tell him, that his is that kind 
of protection which the eagle affords to the lamb, — covering it 
to devour it. 

It will be seen that all which has been stated bears indirectly, 
but conclusively, upon the question of Russia and Turkey, and af- 
fords an unanswerable argument against going to war to defend our 
commerce by means of naval armaments; since it is plain, from 
the example of Gibraltar, that, even were Constantinople in our 
own power, its commerce could be retained only by our selling 
cheaper than other nations ; whilst, supposing it to be in the 
possession of Russia, or any other people, the cheapness of our 
commodities will eventually command that market, in the same 
manner as the cheap drills and prints of Saxony and Switzerland 



RUSSIA. 107 

supplant our goods, in spite of the batteries and fleets which 
defend our Spanish fortress. 

Having thus shown that cheapness, and not the cannon or the 
sword, is the weapon through which alone we possess and can 
hope to defend or extend our commerce, — having proved, also, 
that an increase of trade, so far from demanding an augmentation 
of warlike armaments, furnishes an increased safeguard against 
the chances of war, — is it not clear that, to diminish the taxes 
and duties which tend to enhance the cost of our manufactures, 
by a reduction of our navy^ and army, is the obvious policy of a 
ministry which understands and desires to promote the true 
interests of this commercial nation ? Were our army and navy 
reduced to one-half of their present forces, and the amount saved 
applied to the abolition of the duties upon cotton, wool, glass, 
paper, oil, soap, drugs, and the thousand other ingredients of our 
manufactures, such a step would do more towards protecting and 
extending the commerce of Great Britain than an augmentation 
of the naval armaments to fifty times their present strength, even 
supposing such an increase could be effected with no addition to 
the national burdens. 

Experience has shown that an overwhelming power at sea, 
whilst it cannot dictate a favorable commercial treaty with the 
smallest independent state (for such a spectacle of violence was 
never seen as a victorious admiral, sword in hand, prescribing 
the terms of a tariff to his prostrate foe), has had the effect of 
rousing national fear, hatred and envy, in the breasts of foreign- 
ers; and these vile feelings of human nature, awakened and 
cultivated by our own appeal to the mere instinct of brute force, 
have been naturally directed, in every possible way, to thwart 
and injure our trade. During the latter half of the French 
revolutionary wars, England, owing to successive victories, be- 

* The public papers have announced that, owing to the demand for sailors 
for the royal navy, the merchants have been compelled to advance the wage.- 
of their hands. We have read the following notice upon the quay at Liver- 
pool : " Wanted, for his majesty's navy, a number of petty officers and 
bodied seamen." It would seem that there is no want of commissioned oftk-- 
which accounts for the increase of the navy estimates, we suspect. 



108 



RUSSIA. 



came the mistress of the ocean ; her flag floated triumphantly 
over every navigable parallel of latitude, and her merchants and 
manufacturers commanded a monopoly of the markets of the 
globe. For a period of more than ten years, an enemy's ship was 
scarcely to be seen, unless as a fugitive from the thunder of our 
vessels of war; no neutrals were allowed to pass along that 
thoroughfare of nations, the ocean, without submitting to pay the 
homage to British power of undergoing the humiliation of a 
search by our cruisers. There was something inconceivably flat- 
tering to the vulgar mind in this exhibition of successful violence. 
Our naval supremacy, consequently, became the theme and 
watchword of all those orators, statesmen and writers, who had 
an interest in perpetuating the war. Poets, too, were put in 
requisition ; and a thousand songs, all breathing such sentiments 
as " Rule Britannia," were heard in the theatres, taverns, and 
streets. Cupidity, as well as pride, was appealed to. Our 
merchants were continually reminded, by the minister and his 
minions, that they alone possessed the markets of the world ; 
and, even whilst our yearly national expenditure reached nearly 
double the amount of the whole of our exports, such was she 
intoxication, such the infatuation of the moment, owing to the 
gross appeals made to national vanity, that the multitude were 
not only impressed with the belief that our commerce was profit- 
able, but convinced that England was destined to remain perma- 
nently the same trading monopolist. Peace cured us of this 
maddening fever ; but, in exchange, it brought the lumbago of 
debt, which still oppresses and torments our body politic. Not 
only this : the moral is yet to follow. The brute force which we 
had exercised towards foreign nations, at sea, during the war, had 
naturally excited the animal feelings of hatred, fear and revenge, 
in return. Every country began to establish manufactures, in 
order to become independent of and secure against Great Britain. 
Russia, Austria and France, now commenced the war of interdicts ; 
and Ferdinand of Spain* had no sooner succeeded in reestab- 

* Our former intervention in the concerns of Spain was characterized by 
wisdom itself, when compared with the unadulterated folly of tho part we are 



KUSSIA. 109 

lishing the inquisition, than he — for whom, to the everlasting 
infamy of that epoch of our history, the blood and treasure of 
England were squandered — repaid us with a prohibition of our 
cottons ! 

We cannot give proofs of the motives which actuate the coun- 
cils of despotic princes, for they furnish none to the world ; but 
the discussions on the tariff laws, in France and the United 
States, which were necessarily public, fully disclosed that the 
reason which led their governments to seek to become themselves 
manufacturers was to render those countries independent of 
the power of Great Britain at sea. The French nation — 
which, in 1786, had concluded a treaty of commerce with Great 
Britain, upon terms very favorable to the latter, and which would, 
had it not been interrupted by war, have consolidated the two 
countries, by a complete identification of interests, long before 
the period we are now speaking of — proceeded, immediately on 
the close of hostilities, to prohibit the introduction of every 

at present taking in Peninsular affairs. Here is a family quarrel, between 
two equally worthless personages, who dispute the right of reigning over ten 
millions of free people ; and England sends a brigade of four or five thousand 
men (by what right ?) to decide this purely domestic question ! We have 
been informed, by a friend long resident in Spain, upon whose authority we 
can rely, that there is not an honest public functionary in the country ; that, 
from the minister down to the lowest tide-waiter, all are as corrupt now as 
when Wellington endured the treachery of this people. Villiers and Evans 
are experiencing that treatment, at the hands of Isturiez and Cordova, which 
Frere and Sir John Moore encountered, thirty years ago, from the agents of 
the government. That the people are not improved by our last sacrifices for 
the dynasty of Ferdinand, may be proved by their atrocities and female mas- 
sacres, unheard of out of Turkey. When the affairs of the British empire 
are conducted with as much wisdom as goes to the successful management of 
a private business, the honest interests of our own people will become the study 
of the British ministry ; and then, and not till then, instead of being at tho 
mercy of a chaos of expedients, our foreign secretary will be guided by the 
principle of non-intervention in the politics of other nations. " A people," 
says Channing, " which wants a savior, which does not possess an earnest and 
pledge of freedom in its own heart, is not yet ready to be free." In the 
mean time, it cannot be too widely known that our interference in the pri- 
vate quarrels of these semi-barbarians will cost us, this year, half a million 
sterling ; whilst, with difficulty, we have obtained ten thousand pounds for 
establishing Normal Schools ! 

10 



110 RUSSIA. 

article of our manufacture. The spirit which operated then is 
still alive, and with the avowal of the self-same motives ; for, dur- 
ing the late discussions in the Chamber of Deputies,^ upon the 
revisal of the tariff, a discriminating duty was laid upon the coal 
coming from this country (by the unprecedented scheme of divid- 
ing France into three zones for that very purpose), and it was 
defended upon the plea of protection against inconvenience during 
war ! 

America, however, presents us with the severest lesson, as the 
moral of that policy which relie3 upon violence and war for the 
support or acquisition of comnKrce. In the report of the com- 
mittee on manufactures of cotton, presented to the Congress of the 
United States, February 13, 1816 (a paper drawn up with great 
moderation and delicacy, so far as relates to the allusions to 
British violence during the war just concluded), it is stated that, 
"Prior to the years 1806 and 1807, establishments for manufac- 
turing cotton wool had not been attempted, but in a few instances, 
and on a limited scale. Their rise and progress are attributable 
to embarrassments to which commerce was subjected, which em- 
barrassments originated in causes not within the control of human 
prudence." The causes here alluded to are the British orders in 

* The ignoranoe manifested in the French Chamber of Deputies upon com- 
mercial affairs, during the recent discussions, and the folly and egotism of 
the majority of the speakers, leave little hope of an increased intercourse 
between the two countries. M. Thiers openly avowed that we were to be 
manufacturing rivals, but political friends ; we disclaim both these relation- 
ships. The French, whilst they are obliged to prohibit our fabrics from their 
own market, because their manufacturers cannot, they say, sustain a compe- 
tition with us, even with a heavy protecting duty, never will become our 
rivals in third markets, where both will pay alike. This boast of the prime 
minister of France is like the swagger of one who, having barricaded him- 
self securely in his own house, blusters about giving battle in a neighboring 
oounty. For the English ministry to form a mere political connection with 
the present unstable government and dynasty of France, to the exclusion of 
trading objects, would be to put us in partnership with a party in a desperate 
state of fortune, who resolved not to mend it. There can be no real alliance 
unless by a union of interests. Schoolboys have sufficient knowledge of 
human nature to feel this, when they throw their marbles into a common bag, 
and become friends. 



RUSSIA. Ill 

council and Bonaparte's decrees. Then follows a statement of the 
quantity of cotton wool manufactured at successive periods in the 
United States : 

1800, . . 500 bales. 

1805, 1000 " 

1810, 10,000 " 

1815, 90,000 « 

And afterwards it goes on to say, in speaking of Great Britain : 
" No improper motives are intended to be imputed to that govern- 
ment. But does not experience teach a lesson that should never 
be forgotten, that governments, like individuals, are apt ' to feel 
power and forget right'? It is not inconsistent with national 
decorum to become circumspect and prudent. May not the gov- 
ernment of Great Britain be inclined, in analyziug the basis of her 
political power, to consider and regard the United States as her 
rival, and to indulge an improper jealousy, the enemy of peace 
and repose ? " And in proposing, on February 12, 1816, a new tariff 
to the Senate, in which cotton goods are subjected to thirty-three and 
a third per cent, duty, the Secretary of the Treasury, in the course 
of his report, has this passage : " But it was emphatically during the 
period of the restrictive system and of the war that the import- 
ance of domestic manufactures became conspicuous to the nations, 
and made a lasting impression upon the mind of every statesman 
and every patriot." It is not, however, by state papers that we 
can fully estimate the sentiments of the nation at large. Immedi- 
ately on the cessation of war, a strong feeling was manifested, in 
all parts of the Union, in favor of protecting the manufactures of 
the country. This feeling prevailed with the democratic party, 
which was then in the ascendant, quite as much as with the fed- 
eralists, although the former had previously been opposed to pro- 
tecting duties. We cannot better illustrate this than by giving 
the following extract from a letter written at this time by the 
great leader and champion of that party, Jefferson, who, in his 
11 Notes on Virginia," written in 1785, had given his opinion 
" that the workshops of Europe are the most proper to furnish the 
supplies of manufactures to the United States ; " but, after the 



112 RUSSIA. 

experience of the war, changed his opinion to the following : 
" The British interdicted to our vessels all harbors of the globe, 
without they had first proceeded to some one of hers, there paid trib- 
ute proportioned to their cargo, and obtained a license to proceed to 
the port of destination. Compare this state of things with that of 
1785, and say whether an opinion founded in the circumstances of 
that day can be fairly applied to those of the present. We have 
experienced, what we did not then believe, that there does exist 
both profligacy and power enough to exclude the United States 
from the field of intercourse with foreign nations. We, therefore, 
have a right to conclude that, to be independent for the comforts 
of life, we must fabricate them for ourselves. We must now place 
the manufacturer by the side of the agriculturist. The question 
of 1785 is suppressed, or rather assumes a new form. The ques- 
tion is, Shall we manufacture our own comforts, or go without 
them at the will of a foreign nation ? He, therefore, who is now 
against domestic manufactures must be for reducing us to a depend- 
ence upon foreign nations. I am not one of these." 

We have illustrated this matter with reference to the United 
States more clearly than in relation to France, because, as we have 
elsewhere stated, it is our conviction, after giving considerable 
attention to the subject, that future danger to our manufacturing 
and commercial supremacy impends from America, rather than 
from any European nation. It will be seen, from the preceding 
quotations, that, from the first independence of that country, the 
democratic party was inimical to the establishing of protective 
duties; that party, under Jefferson, then was, and down to this 
day it continues to be, triumphant; and we therefore possess 
unquestionable evidence that, by the hand of violence of England 
herself in 1806 and subsequently, the cotton manufacture was 
planted in the United States ; and it may be seen, in the foregoing 
table, how, watered by the blood of our succeeding ten years' 
French war, it flourished an hundred and eighty fold! That 
manufacture is not destined to perish ; it now equals the fifth of 
our own staple industry. We do not predict such a retributive 
visitation ; we are proof against despair when the energies of our 
countrymen are the grounds of hope ; but if, in consequence of 



RUSSIA. 113 

past wastefulness or future extravagance and misgovernment here, 
a people beyond the Atlantic, free of debt, resolute in peaceful- 
ness, and of severe economy, should wrest, by the victory of " cheap- 
ness" that main prop of our national prosperity, the cotton manu- 
facture, from our hands, how greatly will it aggravate a nation's 
suffering to remember the bitter historical truth, that that people 
was goaded to the occupations of the spinning-jenny and the loom 
by the violence of Great Britain herself ! 

We mention these facts for the purpose of appealing, on a fresh 
ground, against the policy of maintaining enormous standing arma- 
ments. It has been seen that armies and ships cannot protect or 
extend commerce; whilst, as is too well known, the expenses of 
maintaining them oppress and impede our manufacturing industry 
— two sufficient grounds for reducing both. There is another 
motive in the above facts. That feeling which was awakened by 
our overwhelming power at sea, at the conclusion of the war, — 
the feeling of fear and mistrust lest we should be, in the words of 
the American state paper just quoted, " apt to feel power and 
forget right," — is kept alive by the operation of the same cause, 
which tends still, as we have seen by the last debates in the 
French Chamber of Deputies, to afford excuses for perpetuating 
the restrictive duties upon our fabrics. The standing armies and 
navies, therefore, whilst they cannot possibly protect our com- 
merce, — whilst they add, by the increase of taxation, to the cost 
of our manufactures, and thus augment the difficulty of achieving 
the victory of "cheapness," — tend to deter rather than attract 
customers. The feeling is natural ; it is understood in the indi- 
vidual concerns of life. Does the shopkeeper, when he invites 
buyers to his counter, place there, as a guard to protect his stock 
or defend his salesmen from violence, a gang of stout fellows, 
armed with pistols and cutlasses ? 

There is a vague apprehension of danger to our shores experi- 
enced by some writers, who would not feel safe unless with the 
assurance that the ports of England contained ships of war ready 
at all times to repel an attempt at invasion. This feeling arises 
from a narrow and imperfect knowledge of human nature, in sup- 
posing that another people shall be found sufficiently void of per- 
10* 



114 HUSS1A. 

ception and reflection — in short, sufficiently mad — to assail a 
stronger and richer empire, merely because the retributive injury 
thereby inevitably entailed upon themselves would be delayed a 
few months by the necessary preparation of the instruments of 
chastisement. Such are the writers by whom we have been told that 
Russia was preparing an army of fifty thousand men to make a 
descent upon Great Britain, to subjugate a population of twenty- 
five millions ! Those people do not, in their calculations, award 
to mankind even the instinct of self-preservation which is given for 
the protection of the brute creation. The elephant is not forever 
brandishing his trunk, the lion closes his mouth and conceals his 
claws, and the deadly dart of the reptile is only protruded when 
the animal is enraged ; yet we do not find that the weaker tribes 
— the goats, the deer, or the foxes — are given to assaulting 
those masters of the forest in their peaceful moods. 

If that which constitutes cowardice in individuals, namely, the 
taking of undue and excessive precautions against danger, merits 
the same designation when practised by communities, then Eng- 
land certainly must rank as the greatest poltroon among nations. 
With twenty-five millions of the most robust, the freest, the rich- 
est, and most united population of Europe, enclosed within a 
smaller area than ever before contained so vast a number of inhab- 
itants ; placed upon two islands, which, for security, would have 
been chosen before any spot on earth, by the commander seeking 
for a Torres Vedras to contain his host ; and with the experience 
of seven hundred years of safety, during which period no enemy 
has set foot upon their shores ; — yet behold the government of 
Great Britain maintaining mighty armaments by sea and land, 
ready to repel the assaults of imaginary enemies ! There is no 
greater obstacle to cheap and good government than this feeling 
df danger which has been created and fostered for the very pur- 
poses of misgovernment.^ 

* " Nothing is worthy of more attention, in tracing the causes of political 
hviI, than the facility with which mankind are governed by their fears, and 
the degree of constancy with which, under the influence of that passion, they 
are governed wrong. The fear of Englishmen to see an enemy in their coun- 
try has made them do an infinite number of things which had much greater 
tendency to bring enemies into their country than to keep them away. 



RUSSIA. 115 

Instead of pandering to this unworthy passion, every journalist 
and public writer ought to impress upon the people of these realms 
that neither from the side of Russia, nor from any other quarter, 
is this industrious, orderly, moral and religious community threat- 
ened ; that it is only from decay and corruption within, and not from 
external foes, that a nation of twenty-five millions of free people, 
speaking one language, identified by habits, traditions and institu- 
tions, governed by like laws, owning the same monarch, and placed 
upon an insular territory of less than one hundred thousand square 
miles, can ever be endangered. History, as we have before remarked, 
affords no example of a great empire, — such, for instance, as Prus- 
sia, — consolidated, enlightened and moral, falling a prey to barba- 
rous invaders. But the British empire, with more than double 
the population and twenty times the wealth, possesses, in the sea- 
girt nature of its situation, a thousand times the security of Prus- 
sia. To attempt to augment such a measure of safety by oppress- 
ive armaments by land and sea, is it the part of wisdom and 
prudence, or of improvidence and folly ? 

But to return to that course of inquiry from which our argu- 
ment has slightly swerved. We recur to the subject of protecting 
our commerce by armed ships ; and it becomes necessary next to 
examine whether, even supposing our naval force could defend 
our trade against the attacks of rivals (which we have conclu- 
sively proved it cannot), the cost of its protection does not, in 
some cases, more than absorb the gain of such traffic. The real 
or declared value of all the British manufactures and other prod- 
uce exported to the Mediterranean, including the coast of Africa 
and the Black Sea, will, this year, amount to about nine million 
five hundred thousand pounds. Under the groundless plea of pro- 
tecting this commerce, we find, from the United Service Journal 

" In nothing, perhaps, have the fears of communities done them so much 
mischief as in the taking of securities against enemies. When sufficiently 
frightened, bad governments found little difficulty in persuading them that 
they never could have securities enough. Hence come large standing armies, 
enormous military establishments, and all the evils which follow in their 
train. Such are the effects of taking too much security against enemies." — 
Ency. Bnt. New edition. Vol. vii. p. 122. 



116 RUSSIA. 

of June 1st, that a naval armament, mounting more than thirteen 
hundred guns, being upwards of a third of the national force, is 
stationed within the Straits of Gibraltar. Taking the annual cost 
of the entire British navy at five millions, if we apportion a third 
part of this amount, and add the whole cost of the fortifications 
and garrisons of the Mediterranean, with their contingents at the 
war-office, ordnance, &c, we shall be quite safe, and within the 
mark, in estimating that our yearly expenditure, in guarding the 
commerce of this sea, amounts to upwards of three millions ster- 
ling, or one-third of our exports to those quarters. Now what 
kind of a business would a wholesale dealer or merchant pro- 
nounce it, were his traveller's expenses, for escort alone, to come to 
six shillings and eight-pence * in the pound on the amount of his 
sales ! Yet this is precisely the unprofitable character of our 
yearly trade to the Mediterranean. Most people approach the 
investigation of a nation's affairs with the impression that they do 
not come under the same laws of common-sense and homely wis- 
dom by which private concerns are governed, than which nothing 



* We shall offer no excuses for so frequently resolving questions of state 
policy into.matters of pecuniary calculation. Nearly all the revolutions and 
great changes in the modern world have had a financial origin. The 
exaction of the tenth penny operated far more powerfully than the erec- 
tion of the Council of Blood, to stir the Netherlander into rebellion in 
1569 against the tyranny of Charles V. Charles I. of England lost his head 
in consequence of enforcing the arbitrary tax called ship-money. The inde- 
pendence of America, and indirectly, through that event, all the subsequent 
political revolutions of the entire world, turned upon a duty of three-pence 
a pound, levied by England upon tea imported into that colony. Louis XVI 
of France, when he summoned the first assembly of the Estates-General, did 
so with the declared object of consulting with them upon the financial embar- 
rassments under which his government was laboring ; that was the first of a 
6eries of definite changes, which eventually cost the king his life, and Europe 
twenty years of sanguinary wars. The second French revolution, in 1830, 
was begun by the printers, who were deprived of the means of subsistence by 
the ordinances of Charles X. against the press. How much of our own lie- 
form Bill was the fruits of a season of distress *? 

Remembering that to nineteen-twentieths of the people (who never encoun- 
ter a higher functionary than the tax-gatherer, and who meet their rulers only 
in duties upon beer, soap, tobacco, &c.) politics are but an affair of pounds, 
shillings and pence, we need not feel astonished at such facts as the preceding. 



RUSSIA. 117 

ean be more erroneous. America, which carries on a traffic oi>- 
half as extensive as Great Britain, with only a sixth * of our nav y 
expenses, and with no charge for maintaining colonies or garrisoBS, 
is every year realizing a profit to her people, beyond that of her 
extravagant rival, in proportion to her more economical establish- 
ments ; just exactly in the same way that the merchant or shopkeeper 
who conducts his business at a less cost for rent, clerks, &c, will, 
at each stock-taking, find his balance-sheet more favorable than 
that of his less frugal competitor. And the result will be in the 
one case as the other — that the cheaper management will pro- 
duce cheaper commodities ; which, in the event, will give a victory 
in every market to the more prudent trader. 

But if, instead of the Mediterranean generally, we apply this 
test to an individual nation situated on that sea, we shall be able 

* The following is the American navy in commission, February 27, 1836; 
One ship of the line, four frigates, eleven sloops, six small vessels ; and this 
after a threatened rupture with France, when every arrival from Europe 
might have brought a declaration of war ! Compare this statement with the 
fact that the British government, with a force, at the same time, more than 
six-fold that of the United States, demanded an increase of more than the 
entire strength of the American navy, and with the same breath avowed the 
assurance of permanent peace ; and let it be remembered, too, that the 
House of Commons voted this augmentation, under the pretence of protecting 
our commerce ! 

A few plain maxims may be serviceable to those who may in future have 
occasion to allude to the subject of commerce, in kings' speeches or other 
state papers. 

To make laws for the regulation of trade, is as wise as it would be to legis- 
late about water finding a level, or matter exercising its centripetal force. 

So far from large armaments being necessary to secure a regularity of sup- 
ply and demand, the most obscure province on the west coast of America and 
the smallest island in the south Pacific are, in proportion to their wants, as 
duly visited by buyers and sellers as the metropolis of England itself. 

The only naval force required in a time of peace, for the protection of com- 
merce, is just such a number of frigates and small vessels as shall form an 
efficient sea-police. 

If government desires to serve the interests of our commerce, it has but 
one way. War, conquest aud standing armaments cannot aid, but only oppress 
trade ; diplomacy will never assist it ; commercial treaties can only embar- 
rass it. The only mode by which the government can protect and extend our com- 
merce is by retrenchment, and a reduction of the duties and taxes upon the ingre- 
dients of our manufactures and the food of our aitisans. 



118 RUSSIA. 

to illustrate the matter more plainly. In the same work from 
which we have before quoted, we find it stated that there arc 
(June 1st) thirteen British ships of war lying at Lisbon, carrying 
three hundred and seventy-two guns; a force about equal to the 
whole American navy employed in protecting the interests of that 
commercial people all over the world ! That part of our annual 
navy estimates which goes to support this amount of guns, with 
contingent expenses fairly proportioned, will reach about seven 
hundred thousand pounds. Turning to M'Culloch's Commercial 
Dictionary (article Oporto), we find that the declared value of 
exports of British manufactures and produce to the entire kingdom 
of Portugal reached, in 1831 (the latest year we have at this 
moment access to), nine hundred and seventy-five thousand nine 
hundred and ninety-one pounds. Here, then, we find, even allowing 
for increase, the escort costing nearly as much as the amount sold. 
In a word, Portugal is, at this moment, paying us at the rate of 
five hundred thousand pounds a year clear and dead loss ! Our 
commerce with that country, on this 1st of June, was precisely of 
the same ruinous character to the British nation as it would be in 
the case of an individual trader who turned over twenty thousand 
a year, and whose expenses in clerks, watchmen, rents, &c, were 
fifteen thousand pounds. If anything could add to the folly of such 
conduct, — conduct which, if proved against an individual brought 
before an insolvent debtors' tribunal, would be enough to consign 
him to prison, — it is, to recollect that no part of such a nautical 
force can possibly be of the slightest service to our trade with 
Portugal, which is wholly independent of such coercion. Even 
our foreign secretary — a functionary who, during the last hun- 
dred and fifty years, has travelled abroad for this commercial 
empire with no other result to the national ledger but eight hun- 
dred millions of bad debts — has, we are happy to see, discovered 
this truth; for, on being questioned by Mr. Robinson, in the 
housed as to a recent grateful augmentation of duties upon Brit- 
ish goods, amounting to fourteen per cent., by the government of 
Lisbon, our present foreign secretary. Lord Palmerston, avowed 

* House of Commons' Report, June 6. 



RUSSIA. 119 

that the Portuguese were free to put whatever restraints they 
chose upon our trade with their country ; and he merely threatened, 

if the tariff was not satisfactory, that he would attack them 

how do our readers suppose ? — with the thunder of our ships in 
the Tagus ? — with soldiers and sailors ? — with grape, musketry, 
shot, shell and rocket ? — all of which we provide for the pro- 
tection of our commerce. No with retaliatory duties ! 

To proceed to a worse case. On the 1st of June, our naval 
force on the West India station (see United Service Journal) 
amounted to twenty-nine vessels, carrying four hundred and seven- 
ty-four guns, to protect a commerce just exceeding two millions 
per annum. This is not all. A considerable military force is 
kept up in those islands, which, with its contingent of home 
expenses at the war-office, ordnance-office, &c, must also be put to 
the debit of the same account. Add to which our civil expendi- 
ture, and the charges at the colonial-office, on behalf of the West 
Indies, and we find, after due computation, that our whole expend- 
iture in governing and protecting the trade of those islands 
exceeds, considerably, the total amount of their imports of our 
produce and manufactures. Our case here is no better than that 
of Jenkins & Sons, or Jobson & Co., or any other firm, whose 
yearly returns are less than the amount of their expenses for trav- 
ellers, clerks, &c. ; and, if the British empire escapes the ruin 
which, at the close of the year, must inevitably befall those im- 
provident traders, it is only because we have other markets and 
resources, — the Americas and Asia, and the productive industry 
of these islands, — to draw upon, to cover the annual loss sus- 
tained by our West India possessions. (?) 

Or, for another parallel case, let our readers suppose that a 
Yarmouth house, engaged in the herring trade, were to maintain, 
besides the fishermen who, with their boats and nets, were em- 
ployed in catching the fish, as many yachts, full of well-dressed 
lookers-on, as should cost a sum equal to the value of all the her- 
rings caught; that house would, at the end of the year, have 
sacrificed the whole of the money paid for the labor of the fisher- 
men, besides the interest and wear and tear of the capital in boats, 
nets, &c. This is precisely the situation of our commerce with the 



120 RUSSIA. 

West Indies at this moment. The British nation — the product- 
ive classes — pay, in taxation, as much to support well-dressed 
lookers-on, in ships of war, garrisons and civil offices, as their 
goods sell for to the West Indians ; and, consequently, the whole 
amount expended for wages and material, together with the wear 
and tear of machinery, and loss of capital incurred in making cot- 
tons, woollens, &c, besides the hire of merchants' ships and sea- 
men to convey the merchandise to market, is irredeemably lost 
to the tax-payers of this country.^ Here is a plain statement of 
the case ; and in America, where everything is subjected to the 
test of common-sense, the question would be at once determined by 
such an appeal to the homely wisdom of every-day life. If, in that 
country, it could be shown that a traffic between New York and 
Cuba, to the yearly amount of ten millions of dollars, was con- 
ducted at a cost to the community of the same amount of taxation, 
it would be put down, by one unanimous cry of outraged prudence, 
from Maine to Louisiana. And how long will it be before the 
policy of the government of this manufacturing and commercial 
nation shall be determined by at least as much calculation and 
regard for self-interest as are necessary to the prosperity of a pri- 
vate business? Not until such time as Englishmen apply the 
name rules of common-sense to the affairs of state that they do to 
their individual undertakings. We will not stop to inquire of 
what use are those naval armaments to protect a traffic with our 
own territory. It is customary, however, to hear our standing 
army and navy defended, as necessary for the protection of our 
colonies, as though some other nation might otherwise seize them. 
Where is the enemy (?) that would be so good as to steal such 
property ? We should consider it to be quite as necessary to arm 
in defence of our national debt ! 

* We invite the attention of public-spirited members of Parliament to these 
lacta : they are submitted for the investigation of the conductors of the 
newspaper press. Every chamber of commerce in the kingdom is interested 
in the subject ; this is not a question of party politics, but of public business. 
Every prudent trader must feel outraged at such a display of reckless cxtrav- 
aganoe by a commercial people ; nay, every economical laborer and frugal 
housewife must be scandalized by this wasteful misdirection of the industry of 
the state. 



RUSSIA. 



121 



Enough has been said to prove that, even if armaments for the 
protection of commerce could effect the object for which they are 
maintained (although we have shown the false pretensions of the 
plea of defending our trade), still the cost of supporting these 
safeguards may often be greater than the amount of profit gained. 
This argument applies more immediately to Turkey and the East, 
upon which countries a share of public attention has lately been 
bestowed far beyond the importance of their commerce.^ It 
world be difficult to apportion the precise quota of our ships of 
war, which may be said to be, at this moment, maintained with a 
view to support our influence, or carry into effect the views of 
our foreign secretary in the affairs of Constantinople. The late 
augmentation of the navy, — the most exceptionable vote which 
has passed a Reformed House of Commons, — although accom- 
plished by the ministry without explanation of its designs, further 

* Pitt, whose views of commercial policy were, at the commencement of 
his career, before he was drawn into the vortex of war by a selfish oligarchy, 
far more enlightened and liberal than those of his great political opponents 
(as witness the opposition by Burke and Fox to his French treaty, on the 
vulgar ground that the two nations were natural enemies), entertained a just 
opinion of the comparative unimportance of the trade of the east of the 
Mediterranean, after the growth of our cotton manufactures and the rise of 
the United States had given a new direction to the great flood of traffic. 

" Of the importance of the Levant trade," said Mr. Pitt (see Ha7isard\* 
Pari. Hist. vol. xxxvi. p. 59), " much had formerly been said ; volumes bad 
been written upon it, and even nations had gone to war to obtain it. The 
value of that trade, even in the periods to which he had alluded, had been 
much exaggerated ; but even supposing those statements to have been cor- 
rect, they applied to times when the other great branches of our trade, to 
which we owe our present greatness and our naval superiority, did not exist ; 
he alluded to the great increase of our manufactures, — to our great internal 
trade, — to our commerce with Ireland, — with the United States of America; 
it was these which formed the sinews of our strength, and, compared with 
which, the Levant trade was trifling." This was spoken in 1801 ; since 
which time, our trade with the United States has increased three-fold ; and, 
by the emancipation of the South American colonies, another continent, of 
3till greater magnitude, offers us a market which throws, by its superior 
advantages, those of the Levant and Turkey into comparative insignificance, 
and adds proportionably to the force of the argument in the above quota- 
tion. Yet we have statesmen of our day who seem to have scarcely recog- 
nised the existence of America ! 
11 



122 RUSSIA. 

than the century-old pretence of protecting our commerce, 1 * was 
generally believed to have been aimed at Russia in the Black 
Sea. Our naval force in the East was considerable previously ; 
but, taking only the increase into calculation, it will cost more 
than three times the amount of the current profits of our trade 
with Turkey, whilst it can bestow no prospective benefits ; since, 
even if we possessed Constantinople ourselves, we should only be 
able to command its trade by selling, as at Gibraltar, cheaper 
than other people. Our nautical establishments devoted to the 
(pretended) guardianship of British commercial interests (for we 
can have no other description of interests a thousand miles off) 
in Turkey are, the present year, costing the tax-payers of this 
country, upon the lowest computation, more than three times the 
amount of the annual profit of our trade with that country. Not 
content with this state of things, which leaves very little chance of 
future gain, some writers and speakers would plunge us into a war 
with Russia, in defence of Turkey, for the purpose of protecting 
this commerce ; the result of which would inevitably be, as in 
former examples of wars undertaken to defend Spain or Portu- 
gal, that such an accumulation of expenses would ensue as to 
prevent the possibility of the future profit upon our exports to 

* Two letters have since been published in the Manchester Guardian, May 
28, which are written by Lord Durham, and addressed to Mr. Gisborne, the 
British consul at Petersburg, giving the most positive assurances that no 
interruption will take place in our friendly commercial relations with Russia. 
Will the navy be reduced 1 We may apply the lines of Gay, written upon 
standing armies, a century ago, to sailors : 

" Soldiers are perfect devils in their way, — 
When once they 're raised, they 're deuced hard to lay." 

Apropos of soldiers. In 1831, during the progress of the Reform Bill, and 
when the country was upon the eve of a new election, in which, owing to the 
excitement of the people, tumults were justly to be dreaded, an augmentation 
of the army, to the extent of seven thousand six hundred and eighty men, 
was voted by the Parliament. Mr. Wynn, the then War Secretary, declared 
that this increase had no reference to continental affairs. He should be re- 
joiced, he said, if the causes which led to this augmentation should cease, 
and enable the government to reduce the estimates, before the end of three 
months. No reduction yet — 1836 ! Where is Mr. Hume 1 



RUSSIA. 123 

the Ottoman empire even amounting to so much as should dis- 
charge the yearly interest of the debt contracted in its behalf. 

We had intended, and were prepared, to give a summary of 
the wars, — their causes and commercial consequences, — in which 
Great Britain has been, during the last century and a half, from 
time to time, engaged ; but we are admonished that our limited 
space will not allow us to follow out this design. It must suffice 
to offer, as the moral of the subject, that, although the conflicts 
in which this country has, during the last hundred and fifty years, 
involved itself, have, as Sir Henry Parnel * has justly remarked, 
in almost every instance, been undertaken in behalf of our com- 
merce, yet we hesitate not to declare that there is no instance 
recorded in which a favorable tariff, or a beneficial commercial 
treaty, has been extorted from an unwilling enemy at the point 
of the sword. On the contrary, every restriction that embar- 
rasses the trade of the whole world, all existing commercial jeal- 
ousies between nations, the debts that oppress the countries of 
Europe, the incalculable waste owing to the misdirected labor 
and capital of communities, — these, and a thousand other evils, 
that are now actively thwarting and oppressing commerce, are all 
the consequences of wars ! How shall a profession which with- 
draws from productive industry the ablest of the human race, 
and teaches them, systematically, the best modes of destroying 
mankind, — which awards honors only in proportion to the num- 
ber of victims offered at its sanguinary altar, — which overturns 
cities, ravages farms and vineyards, uproots forests, burns the 
ripened harverst, — which, in a word, exists but in the absence 
of law, order, and security; — how can such a profession be 
favorable to commerce, which increases only with the increase of 
human life, — whose parent is agriculture, and which perishes or 
flies at the approach of lawless rapine ? Besides, they who pro- 
pose to influence, by force, the traffic of the world, forget that 
affairs of trade, like matters of conscience, change their very 
nature, if touched by the hand of violence ; for as faith, if forced, 
would no longer be religion, but hypocrisy, so commerce becomes 

* " Finanical Reform." 



124: RUSSIA. 

robbery, if coerced by warlike armaments.* If, then, war has, 
in past times, in no instance served the just interests of com- 
merce, whilst it has been the sole cause of all its embarrassments ; 
if, for the future, when trade and manufactures are brought under 
the empire of " cheapness," it can still less protest, whilst its costs 
will yet more heavily oppress it; and having seen that, if war 
could confer a golden harvest of gain upon us, instead of this 
unmixed catalogue of evils, it would still be not profit, but 
plunder ; — having demonstrated these truths, surely we may 
hope to be spared a repetition of the mockery, offered to this 
commercial empire, at the hands of its government and legisla- 
ture, in the proposal to protect our commerce by an increase of 
the royal navy ! On behalf of the trading world, an indissoluble 
alliance is proclaimed with the cause of peace ; and, if the unnat- 
ural union be again attempted, of that daughter of Peace, Com- 
merce, whose path has ever been strewed with the choicest gifts 
of religion, civilization and the arts, with the demon of carnage, 
War, loaded with the maledictions of widows and orphans, reeking 
with the blood of thousands of millionst of victims, with feet fresh 
from the smoking ruins of cities, whose ears delight in the groans 
of the dying, and whose eyes love to gloat upon the dead ; — if 
such an unholy union be hereafter proposed, as the humblest of 
the votaries of that commerce which is destined to regenerate 
and unite the whole world, we will forbid the banns ! 

It was our intention, had space permitted it, to have proved, 

* " To me it seems that neither the obtaining nor the retaining of any 
trade, however valuable, is an object for which men may justly spill each 
other's blood ; that the true and sure means of extending and securing com- 
merce is the goodness and cheapness of commodities ; and that the profit of 
no trade can ever be equal to the expense of compelling it, and of holding 
it by fleets and armies." — Franklin's letter to Lord Howe, quoted in Hughes' 
History of England, vol. xv. p. 254. 

f Burke, in his first production, — A Vindication of Natural Society, — sums 
up his estimate of the loss of human life, by all the wars of past ages, at 
seventy times the population of the globe. It is not a little lamentable to 
reflect that this great genius, among other inconsequential acts of his life, 
afterwards contributed, more than any other individual, to fan the flame of 
the French revolutionary wars, in which several millions more were added to 
his dismo summary of the victims of " glory." (!) 



RUSSIA. 



125 



from facts which we had prepared for the purpose, that no class 
or calling, of whatever rank in society, has ever derived substan- 
tial or permanent advantage from war. The agriculturist, indeed, 
might be supposed to be interested in that state of things which 
yielded an augmentation of price for his produce; and so he 
might, if hostilities were constant and eternal. But war is, at 
best, but a kind of intermittent fever ; and the cure or death of 
the patient must at some time follow. This simile may be justly 
applied to the condition of the farmer during the French wars, 
and subsequently ; at which former period, exposed to the effects 
of the bank restriction, of enormous loans, and of paper issues, 
the pulsation of prices sometimes alternated biennially, with 
dreadful consequences to the febrile sufferer, the agriculturist. 
What management or calculation, on the part of the farmer, 
could be proof against such fluctuations in the markets, — arising 
from continental battles, or the violence or wickedness of a power- 
ful and corrupt government, — as we find when wheat, which, in 
1798, averaged two pounds, ten shillings and threepence a quarter, 
had, in 1800, reached five pounds, thirteen shillings and seven- 
pence, and again sold, in 1802, at three pounds, seven shillings 
and fivepence ; a state of things which exposed the capitalist and 
the adventurer, the prudent man and the gambler, to one common 
fate of suffering and ruin ? The dull, and, to many, fatal peace, 
brought a state of convalescence more intolerable than the excite- 
ment of war. After more than twenty years of this latter species 
of suffering, the invalid is, even now, scarcely cured ; — will he 
permit his wounds to be reopened, merely that he may again 
undergo the self-same healing process ? But the great majority 
of agriculturists, the laborers, so far from deriving any advantages 
from it, suffered grievously from the effects of that war, which is 
sometimes excused or palliated on account of the pretended bene- 
fits it conferred upon the " landed interests." 

Whilst the prices of every commodity of food and clothing 
were rising, in consequence of the depreciation of the currency, 
and other causes incidental to the state of war, the laborers' 
earnings continued pretty much the same. The consequence 
was, that bread sometimes became a luxury, as is now the case 
11* 



126 RUSSIA. 

in Ireland, too dear for the English husbandman's resources ; that 
the cruel salt-tax interposed a barrier between him and that necessary 
of life, which frequently compelled him, when providing his winter 
stock of provisions, to exchange one-half of his pig for the means of 
curing the other ; that good beer rose to a price nearly as prohibit- 
ory to the peasant's palate as port wine ; and that, owing to the 
high cost of clothing, he possessed little more change of habiliments 
than the Russian serf of the present day. What greater proof 
can be required that war prices conferred no blessings upon the 
husbandmen than is afforded in the fact, that the poor-rates were 
the heaviest in the agricultural districts at a time when wheat 
was at its highest market price ? In a word, at no period were 
the peasantry of this country enjoying so great an amount of com- 
forts as they possess at this time ; and the primary cause of which 
is the twenty years' duration of peace. 

Had we space to enter upon the statistics of our trade and man- 
ufactures, it would be easily shown, by an appeal to a comparison of 
the bankruptcies in times of peace and war, by reference to the past 
and present condition of our manufacturing districts, — as exem- 
plified in the relative amounts of poor-rate, crime and turbulence, 
among the working classes, — and in the comparative prosperity of 
the capitalists and employers, that these vital interests have no 
solid prosperity excepting in a time of peace. We feel that there 
is little necessity for enlarging upon this point ; the manufactur- 
ing population do not require to be informed that they can derive 
no benefit from wars. So firmly are they convinced of the advan- 
tages of peace, that, we venture to afiirm, in the behalf of every 
thinking man of this the most important body in the kingdom (in 
reference to our external and commercial policy), that they will 
not consent to a declaration of war in defence of the trade of 
Turkey ,^ or for any other object, except to repel an act of aggres- 
sion upon ourselves. 

* At a meeting of a literary society of which the author is a member, the 
subject of discussion lately was, " Would, or would not, the interests of the 
civilized world, and those of England in particular, be promoted by the con- 
quest of Turkey by Russia 1 " Which, after an interesting debate, on the 
part of a body of as intelligent individuals as can be found in a town more 



RUSSIA. 127 

A very small number of the ship-owners — men who are suffi- 
ciently old to be able to look back -to the time when the British 
navy swept the seas of their rivals — entertain an indistinct kind 
of hope that hostilities would, by putting down competition, again 
restore to them a monopoly of the ocean. This impression can 
only exist in minds ignorant altogether of the changes which have 
taken place in the world since the time when the celebrated orders 
in council were issued, thirty years ago. The United States, con- 
taining twice the population of that period, and the richest inhabit- 
ants in the world, with a mercantile marine second in magnitude 
only to our own, and with a government not only disburthened of 
debt, but inconveniently loaded with surplus riches, — the United 
States will never again submit, even for a day, to tyrannical 
mandates levelled against their commerce at the hands of a Brit- 
ish cabinet. The first effects, then, of another European war, in 
which England shall become unwisely a party, must be that Amer- 
ica will profit at our expense, by grasping the carrying trade of 
Europe ; and the consequences which would, in all probability, 
ultimately follow, are, that the manufacturing and trading pros- 
perity of this empire will pass into the hands of another people — 
the due reward of the peaceful wisdom of their government, and 
the just chastisement of the warlike policy of our own. 

We are, then, justified in the assertion that no class or calling 
of society can derive permanent benefit from war. Even the aris- 
tocracy, which, from holding all the offices of the state, profited 
exclusively by the honors and emoluments arising from past hostil- 
ities, would derive no advantages from future conflicts. The gov- 
erning power is now wholly transferred to the hands of the mid- 
dling class ; and, although time may be necessary to develop all 
the effects of this complete subversion of the former dominant 
influence, can any one for a moment doubt that one of its conse- 
quences will be to dissipate among that more numerous but now 
authoritative class those substantial fruits of power, the civil and 

deeply interested in the question than any in the kingdom, was decided 
affirmatively. The assumed possession was alone considered as affecting tho 
interests of society. The morality of the aggression was not the question 
entertained, and therefore did not receive the sanction of the society. 



128 RUSSIA. 

military patronage, which, under the self-same circumstances, were 
previously enjoyed exclusively by the aristocracy ? The electors 
of the British empire are much too numerous a body to possess 
interests distinct from those of the rest of their countrymen ; and, 
as the nation at large can never derive advantages from war, we 
regard the Reform Bill, which has virtually bestowed upon the ten- 
pounders of this country the guardianship of the temple of Janus, 
to be our guarantee, for all future time, of the continuance of 
peace. 

Before concluding, let us, in a very few words, recur to the sub- 
ject more immediately under consideration. It has been custom- 
ary to regard the question of the preservation of Turkey, not as an 
affair admitting of controversy, but as one determined by the wis- 
dom of our ancestors; and the answer given by Chatham, that 
" with those who contended we had no interest in preserving 
Turkey he would not argue," may probably be quoted to us. The 
last fifty years have, however, developed secrets for the guidance 
of our statesmen, which, had that great man lived to behold them, 
he would have profited by ; he, at least, would not view this matter 
through the spectacles of his grandfather, were he now presiding 
at the helm of state, and surrounded by the glare of light which our 
past unprofitable wars, the present state of the trade of the colonies, 
and the preponderating value of our commerce with free America,^ 
throw around the question of going to war in defence of a nook of 
territory more than a thousand miles distant, and over which ioe 
neither possess 7ior pretend to have any control. That question 
must now be decided solely by reference to the interests of the 
people of this country at this present day, which we have proved 
are altogether on the side of peace and neutrality. Our inquiry 
is not as to the morality or injustice of the case, — that is not 
an affair between Russia and ourselves, but betwixt that people 

* It will be apparent to any inquiring mind, which takes the trouble to 
investigate the subject, that our commerce with America is, at this time, 
alone sustaining the wealth and trade of these realms. Our colonies do not 
pay for the expenses of protecting and governing them, leaving out of the 
question the interest of the debt contracted in conquering them. Europe has 
been a still more unprofitable customer. 



RUSSIA. 129 

and the great Ruler of all nations ; and we are no more called 
upon, by any such considerations, to wrest the attribute of ven- 
geance from the Deity, and deal it forth upon the northern aggress- 
or, than we are to preserve the peace and good behavior of Mex- 
ico, or to chastise the wickedness of the Ashantees. 

It has been no part of our object to advocate the right of Rus- 
sia to invade Turkey or any other state ; nor have we sought to 
impart too favorable a coloring to our portraiture of the govern- 
ment or people of the former empire ; but what nation can fail to 
stand out in a contrast of loveliness, when relieved by the dark 
and loathsome picture which the Ottoman territory presents to 
the eye of the observer ? It ought not to be forgotten that Rus- 
sian civilization (such as it is at this day) is a gain from the 
empire of barbarism ; that the population of that country, how- 
ever low its condition may now be, was, at no former period, so 
prosperous, enlightened or happy, as now ; and that its rapid 
increase in numbers is one of the surest proofs of a salutary gov- 
ernment ; whilst, on the other side, it must be remembered that 
Mahometanism has sat, for nearly four centuries, as an incubus 
upon the fairest and most renowned regions of the earth ; and has, 
during all that period, paralyzed the intellectual and moral ener- 
gies of the noblest portions of the human species ; under whose 
benumbing sway those countries which in former ages pro- 
duced Solomon, Homer, Longinus and Plato, have not given one 
poetic genius or man of learning to the world ; beneath which the 
arts have remained unstudied by the descendants of Phidias and 
Praxiteles ; whilst labor has ceased where Alexandria, Tyre and 
Colchis, formerly flourished, and the accumulation of wealth is 
unknown in the land where Croesus himself once eclipsed even the 
capitalists of the modern world.^ If, then, we refer to the crite- 

* It is a saying of Montesquieu, that " God Almighty must have intended 
Spain and Turkey as examples to show to the world what the finest countries 
may become when inhabited by slaves." Yet these two nations are now the 
objects of British protection, and the source of considerable annual expendi- 
ture to the people of these realms ; whilst the statu quo of Turkey seems to 
be the aim of our politicians. In speaking of the cost of our interference in 
Spain, we assume (safely enough) that the loan of arms by the British gov- 
ernment will not be repaid. 



130 RUSSIA. 

rion afforded by the comparison of numbers, we shall find, in the 
place of the overflowing population which, in former ages, poured 
out from these regions to colonize the rest of the world, nothing 
but deserted wastes and abandoned cities ; and the spectacle of 
the inhabitants of modern Turkey melting away, whilst history 
and the yet existing ruins of empires attest the richness and fer- 
tility of its soil, affords incontestible proof of the destructive and 
impoverishing character of the government of Constantinople. 

Our object, however, in vindicating Russia from the attacks of 
prejudice and ignorance, has not been to transfer the national 
hatred to Turkey, but to neutralize public feeling, by showing that 
our only wise policy — nay, the only course consistent with the 
instinct of self-preservation — is to hold ourselves altogether inde- 
pendent of and aloof from the political relations of both these 
remote and comparatively barbarous nations. England, with her 
insular territory, her consolidated and free institutions, and her 
civilized and artificial condition of society, ought not to be, and 
cannot be, dependent for safety or prosperity upon the conduct of 
Russia or Turkey ; and she will not, provided wisdom governs her 
counsels, enter into any engagements so obviously to the disadvan- 
tage of her people, as to place the peace and happiness of this em- 
pire at the mercy of the violence or wickedness of two despotic 
rulers over savage tribes, more than a thousand miles distant from 
our shores. 

11 While the government of England takes ' peace ' for its motto, 
it is idle to think of supporting Turkey," * says one of the most 
influential and active agitators in favor of the policy of going to 
war with Russia. In the name of every artisan in the kingdom, 
to whom war would bring the tidings, once more, of suffering and 
despair ; in the behalf of the peasantry of these islands, to whom 
the first cannon would sound the knell of privation and death ; on 
the part of the capitalists, merchants, manufacturers and traders, 
who can reap no other fruits from hostilities but bankruptcy and 
ruin ; in a word, for the sake of the vital interests of these and all 
other classes of the community, we solemnly protest against Great 

* " England, France, Russia and Turkey," fifth edition, p. 149. 



RUSSIA. 131 

Britain being plunged into war with Russia, or any other coun- 
try, in defence of Turkey — a war which, whilst it would inflict 
disasters upon every portion of the community, could not bestow a 
permanent benefit upon any class of it ; and one upon our success 
in which no part of the civilized world would have cause to 
rejoice. Having the interests of all orders of society to support 
our argument in favor of peace, we need not dread war. These, 
and not the piques of diplomatists, the whims of crowned heads, 
the intrigues of ambassadresses, or schoolboy rhetoric upon the 
balance of power, will henceforth determine the policy of our gov- 
ernment. That policy will be based upon the bona fide principle 
(not Lord Palmerston's principle) of non-intervention in the 'polit- 
ical affairs of other nations ; and from the moment this maxim 
becomes the load-star by which our government shall steer the 
vessel of the state, from that moment the good old ship Britannia 
will float triumphantly in smooth and deep water, and the rocks, 
shoals and hurricanes, of foreign war, are escaped forever. 

If it be objected that this selfish policy disregards the welfare 
and improvement of other countries, — which is, we cordially 
admit, the primary object of many of those who advocate a war 
with Russia in defence of Turkey, and for the restoration of 
Poland, — we answer that, so far as the objects we have in view are 
concerned, we join hands with nearly every one of our opponents. 
Our desire is to see Poland happy, Turkey civilized, and Russia 
conscientious and free ; it is still more our wish that these amelio- 
rations should be bestowed by the hands of Britain upon her less 
instructed neighbors ; so far the great majority of our opponents 
and ourselves are agreed ; how to accomplish this beneficent pur- 
pose is the question whereon we differ. They would resort to the 
old method of trying, as "Washington Irving says, " to promote 
the good of their neighbors, and the peace and happiness of the 
world, by dint of the cudgel." Now, there is an unanswerable 
objection to this method : experience is against it ; it has been 
tried for some thousands of years, and has always been found to 
fail. But, within our own time, a new light has appeared, which 
has penetrated our schools and families, and illuminated our pris- 
ons and lunatic asylums, and which promises soon to pervade all 



132 RUSSIA. 

the institutions and relations of social life. We allude to that 
principle which, renouncing all appeals, through brute violence, to 
the mere instinct of fear, addresses itself to the nobler and far 
more powerful qualities of our intellectual and moral nature. 
This principle, — which, from its very nature as a standard, tends 
to the exaltation of our species, has abolished the use of the rod, 
the fetters, the lash, and the strait waistcoat, and which, in a 
modified degree, has been extended even to the brute creation, by 
substituting gentleness for severity in the management of horses * 
and the treatment of dogs, — this principle we would substitute for 
the use of cannon and musketry, in attempting to improve or 
instruct other communities. In a word, our opponents would "pro- 
mote the good of their neighbors by dint of the cudgel ; " we 
propose to arrive at the same end by means of our own national 
example. Their method, at least, cannot be right; since it 
assumes that they are at all times competent to judge of what is 
good for others — which they are not ; whilst, even if they were, 
it would be still equally wrong ; for they have not the jurisdiction 
over other states which authorizes them to do them even good by 
force of arms. If so, the United States and Switzerland might 
have been justified, during the prodigal reign of George IV., in 
making an economical crusade against England, for the purpose 
of " cudgelling " us out of our extravagance and into their frugal- 
ity, which, no doubt, would have been doing good to a nation of 
debtors and spendthrifts ; instead of which, those countries perse- 
vered in their peaceful example. And we have seen the result ; 
Swiss economy has enabled its people to outvie us in cheapness, 
and to teach us a lesson of frugal industry on our own fortress of 
Gibraltar. It is thus that the virtues of nations operate both by 
example and precept ; and such is the power and rank they con- 
fer, that vicious communities, like the depraved individual, are 
compelled to reform, or to lose their station in the scale of 
society. States will all turn moralists, in the end, in self-defence. 



* See the volume on The Horse, published by the Society for the Diffusion of 
UsefxU Knowledge, for the stress laid upon the superiority of mild treatment 
in the breaking of that animal. 



RUSSIA. 133 

Apply this principle to Russia, which we will suppose had con- 
quered Turkey. Ten years, at least, of turbulence and bloodshed, 
would elapse before its fierce Mahometan inhabitants submitted to 
their Christian invaders ; which period must be one of continued 
exhaustion to the nation. Suppose that, at the end of that time, 
those plundered possessions became tranquillized; and the govern- 
ment, which had been impoverished by internal troubles, began to 
reflect and to look abroad for information as to the course of pol- 
icy it should pursue. England, which had wisely remained at 
peace, pursuing its reforms and improvements, would, we have a 
right to assume, present a spectacle of prosperity, wealth and 
power, which invariably reward a period of peace. Can there be 
a doubt that this example of the advantages to be derived from 
labor and improvement, over those accruing from bloodshed and 
rapine, presented in the happiness of the peaceful and the mis- 
ery of the warlike nation, would determine the future career of 
Russia in favor of industry and commerce ? The mere instinct 
of self-love and self-preservation must so decide. Had England, 
and all Europe, been plunged in war to prevent Russia from 
effecting her conquest, there would have been no such example 
of the fruits and blessings of peace, at the close of hostilities, as 
we have here supposed her to present. 

The influence which example has exerted over the conduct of 
nations — more potent and permanent than that of the " cudgel" 
— might form in itself the subject of a distinct and interesting 
inquiry. It should not be confined to the electric effects of state 
convulsions, which shock simultaneously the frames of neighbor- 
ing empires. The tranquil and unostentatious educational reforms 
in Switzerland, the temperance societies of America, and the rail- 
roads of England, exercise a sway as certain, however gradual, 
over the imitativeness of the whole world, as the " glorious " 
three days of France, or the triumph of the Reform Bill. But, 
however interesting the topic, our space does not allow us to pur- 
sue it further. Yet, even whilst we write, a motion is making in 
the House of Commons for a committee to inquire into the mode 
in which the American government disposes of its waste lands. 
A Swiss journal informed us, the other day, that, at a recent 
12 



134 RUSSIA. 

meeting of the Vorort of that country, a member called for a 
municipal reform measure similar to the English Corporation 
Act ; and, in a Madrid journal, which is now before us, the writer 
recommends to the ministers of police a plan for numbering 
and lettering the watchmen of that metropolis, in imitation of the 
new police of London. Such is example, in a time of peace ! 

One word, at parting, between the author and the reader. This 
pamphlet, advocating peace, economy, and a moral ascendency 
over brute violence, as well as deprecating national antipathies, 
has, as our excellent and public-spirited publisher will avouch, 
been written without the slightest view to notoriety or gain 
(what fame or emolument can accrue from the anonymous publi- 
cation of an eightpenny work ?) ; and we therefore run no risk of 
invidious misconception, if, in taking leave of our readers, we do 
so, not with the usual bow of ceremony, but after a fashion of 
our own. In a word, as trade and not authorship is our proper 
calling, they will, we hope, excuse our attempting to make a bar- 
gain with them before we part. And, first, for that very small 
portion of our friends who will only step out of their way to do 
an acceptable act provided good and sufficient claims be estab- 
lished against them : they will compel us, then, to remind them 
that this petty production (which we frankly admit reveals noth- 
ing new) contains as much matter as might have been printed in 
a volume, and sold at above ten times its charge ; and, therefore, 
if those aforesaid customers approve the quality of the article, 
indifferent as it is, our terms of sale are that they lend this 
pamphlet to at least six of their acquaintances for perusal. This 
is the amount of our demand; and, as we are dealing with 
" good " men, we shall book the debt, with the certainty that it 
will be duly paid. 

But by far the larger portion of our readers will be of that 
class who, in the words of Sterne, do good " they know not why, 
and care not wherefore :" to them we say, " If in the preceding 
pages you discover a sincere, however feeble, attempt to preserve 
peace, and put down a gigantic national prejudice ; an honest 
though humble resistance to the false tenets of glory ; an ardent 
but inadequate effort, by proving that war and violence have no 



RUSSIA. 135 

unison with the true interests of mankind, to emancipate our 
moral and intellectual nature from the domination of the mere 
animal propensity of combativeness ; if, in a word, you see sound 
views of commerce, just principles of government, freedom, im- 
provement, morality, justice and truth, anxiously and yet all 
ineffectively advocated, then, and not otherwise, recommend this 
trifle to your friends, place it in the hands of the nearest news- 
paper editors, and bring it in every possible way before the eye 
of the public ; and do this, not for the sake of the author, or the 
merit of his poor production, but that other and more competent 
writers may be encouraged to take up, with equal zeal and far 
greater ability, the same cause, which, we religiously believe, is 
the cause of the best interests of humanity." 

Note. — The circumstance of each of the preceding chapters having been 
stereotyped as soon as written, precludes the insertion of the few following 
words as a note in another and more appropriate part of the pamphlet. 

The predominant feeling entertained with reference to Russia, and the one 
which has given birth to the other passions nourished towards her, is that of 
fear — fear of the danger of an irruption of its people into western Europe, 
and the possibility of another destruction of civilization at the hands of those 
semi-barbarous tribes, similar to that of ancient Rome by their ancestors. 
But the Goths and Huns did not extinguish the power and greatness of the 
Romans : the latter sunk a prey, not to the force of external foes, but to 
their own internal vices and corruptions. Those northern nations which in- 
vaded that empire, and whom we stigmatize as barbarians, were superior in 
the manly qualities of courage, fortitude, discipline and temperance, to the 
Roman people of their day. The Attilas and Alarics were equally superior 
to their contemporaries, the descendants of the Caesars ; and they did not 
sweep with the besom of destruction that devoted land until long after the 
" dark, unrelenting Tiberius, the furious Caligula, the stupid Claudius, the 
profligate and cruel Nero, the beastly Vitellius, and the timid, inhuman Dom- 
itian," had, by exterminating every ancient family of the republic, and 
extirpating every virtue and every talent from the minds of the people, pre- 
pared the way for the terrible punishment inflicted upon them. 

Modern Europe bears no resemblance, in its moral condition, to that of 
ancient Rome, at the time we are alluding to. On the contrary, instead of a 
tendency towards degeneracy, there is a recuperative principle observable in 
the progress of reforms and improvements of the modern world, which, in its 
power of regeneration, gives ground for hope that the present and future 
ages of refinement will escape those evils which grew up alongside the wealth 
and luxury of ancient states, and ultimately destroyed them. 

But the application of the powers of chemistry to the purposes of war fur- 



136 EUSSIA. 

rushes the best safeguard against the future triumph of savage hordes over 
civilized communities. Gunpowder has forever set a barrier against the 
irruption of barbarians into western Europe. War, without artillery and 
musketry, is no longer possible ; and these cannot be procured by such peo- 
ple as form the great mass of the inhabitants of Russia. Such is the power 
which modern inventions in warfare confer upon armies of men, that it is i< 
exaggeration to say that fifty thousand Prussian soldiers, with their com- 
plement of field-pieces, rockets and musketry, are more than a match for all 
the savage warriors, who, with their rude weapons, at different epochs, rav- 
aged the world, from the time of Xerxes down to that of Tamerlane ; whilst 
those countless myriads, without the aid of gunpowder, would be powerless 
against the smallest of the hundreds of fortified places that are now scat- 
tered over Europe. Henceforth, therefore, war is not merely an affair of 
men, but of men, material and money. 

For some remarks upon the possibility of another irruption of barbariars, 
see Gibbon's Rome, ch. 8. 



APPENDIX 



EXTRACTS FROM VARIOUS WRITERS, ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE 
CONDITION OF TURKEY. 

Indeed, it was impossible to conceive a more dismal scene of horror and 
desolation than the Turkish capital now presented. Every day some new 
atrocities were committed, and the bodies of the victims were either hang- 
ing against the doors and walls, or lying without their heads, weltering and 
trampled on, in the middle of the streets. At this season, flights of kites, 
vultures, and other unclean birds of prey, return after their winter's 
migration ; and, as if attracted by the scent of carcasses, were seen all 
day wheeling and hovering about, so as to cover the city like a canopy, 
wherever a body was exposed. By night, the equally numerous and raven- 
ous dogs were heard about some headless body, with the most dismal howl- 
ings, or snarling and fighting over some skull which they were gnawing 
and peeling. In fact, ail that Byron has feigned of Corinth, or Bruce has 
described of Abyssinia, or you have elsewhere read that is barbarous, 
disgusting and terrible, in Eastern usages, was here realized. — A Resi- 
dence in Constantinople during the Greek and Turkish Revolutions. By 
Hie Rev. R. Walsh, LL.D. 



TURKISH DESOLATION. 

My way lay along the shores of the Hellespont ; the weather had now 
become moderate, and the storm was succeeded by a balmy sunshine. I 
cannot describe to you the exquisite beauty of the undulating downs which 
extend along the Asiatic side of this famous sea ; the greensward sloping 
down to the water's edge, intersected every mile by some sweet wooded val- 
ley, running up into the country at one extremity, and terminating in the 
other by a romantic cove, over whose strand the lucid waves rippled. 
Here it was that the first picture of Turkish desolation presented itself to 
me. While those smiling prospects which a good Providence seems to have 
formed for the delight of man invite him to fix his dwelling among them, 
all is desert and desolate as the prairies of the Missouri. In a journey of 
nearly fifteen miles along the coast, and for half the length of the Helles- 
pont, I did not meet a single human habitation ; and this in the finest 
climate, the most fertile soil, and once the most populous country, in the 
world. — Walsh. 

A victory obtained at Patras was certified to the Sultan by the very 
intelligible gazette of a wagon loaded with the ears and noses of the slain, 
Avhich were exposed in a heap, to gratify the feelings of pious Mussulmans. 
Dr. Walsh went to see this ghastly exhibition, which he thus describes in 

12* 



138 APPENDIX. 

his Residence in Constantinople : " Here I found, indeed, that the Turks 
did actually take human features as the Indians take scalps, and the 
trophies of ears, lips and noses, were no fiction. At each side of the gate 
were two piles, like small hay-cocks, formed of every portion of the counte- 
nance. The ears were generally perforated and hanging on strings. The 
noses had one lip and a part of the forehead attached to them ; the chins 
had the other, with generally a long beard ; sometimes the face was cut 
off whole, and all the features remained together ; sometimes it was 
divided into scraps, in all forms of mutilation. It was through these 
goodly monuments of human glory the Sultan and all his train passed 
every day, and, no doubt, were highly gratified by the ghastly aspects they 
presented ; for here they were to remain till they were trampled into the 
mire of the street. Wherever the heaps were partly trodden down, the 
Turks passed over them with perfect indifference. The features, growing 
soft by putridity, continually attached themselves to their feet, and fre- 
quently a man went off with a lip or a chin sticking to his slippers, which 
were fringed with human beard, as if they were lined with fur. This dis- 
play I again saw by accident on another occasion ; and when you hear of 
sacks of ears sent to Constantinople, you may be assured it is a reality, and 
not a figure of speech. But you are not to suppose they are always cut 
from the heads of enemies, and on the particular occasion they are sent to 
commemorate. The number of Greeks killed at Patras did not exceed, per- 
haps, one hundred ; but noses, ears and lips, were cut indiscriminately 
from every skull they could find, to swell the amount." 



GEOGRAPHY AND THE USE OF THE GLOBES. 

Lord Strangford sent the Porte a valuable present. He had brought 
with him a pair of very large globes from England ; and, as the Turks had 
latterly shown some disposition to learn languages, he thought it would be 
a good opportunity to teftch them something else ; and he determined to 
send them over to the Porte, and asked me to go with them and explain 

their object This important present was brought over with 

becoming respect. A Choreash went first with his baton of office ; then 
followed two Janissaries, like Atlases, bearing worlds upon their shoulders ; 
then myself, attended by our principal dragoman in full costume ; and, 
finally, a train of Janissaries and attendants. When arrived at the Porte, 
we were introduced to the Reis Effendi, or Minister for Foreign Affairs, 
who, with other ministers, was waiting for us. When I had the globes 
put together on their frames, they came round us with great interest ; and 
the Reis Effendi, who thought, ex officio, he ought to know something of 
geography, put on his spectacles and began to examine them. The first 
thing that struck them was the compass in the stand. When they observed 
the needle always kept the same position, they expressed great surprise, 
and thought it was done by some interior mechanism. It was mid-day, 
and the shadow of the frame of the window was on the floor. I endeavored 
to explain to them that the needle was always found nearly in that direc- 
tion, pointing to the north ; I could only make them understand that it 
always turned towards the sun ! The Reis Effendi then asked me to show 
him England. When I pointed out the small comparative spot on the great 
globe, he turned to the rest, and said, "Keetchuk," little; and they 
repeated all round, "Keetchuk," in various tones of contempt. But 
when I showed them the dependencies of the empire, and particularly the 
respectable size of India, they said, "Beeyuk," with some marks of 



APPENDIX. 139 

respect. I also took occasion to show them the only mode of coming from 
thence to Constantinople by sea, and that a ship could not sail with a cargo 
of coffee from Mocha across the Isthmus of Suez. The newly-appointed 
dragoman of the Porte, who had been a Jew, and was imbued with a 
slighter tincture of information, was present ; so, after explaining to him 
as much as I could make him comprehend, I left to him the task of further 
instructing the ministers in this new science. Indeed, it appeared to me 
as if none of them had ever seen an artificial globe before, or even a mari- 
iner's compass. — Walsh's Constantinople. 

It has been often remarked that the Turks are rather encamped than 
settled in Europe. Far from improving the countries they govern, they 
scathe everything that comes within their reach ; they destroy monuments, 
but build none ; and when, at length, they are driven out by the chances 
of war or revolution, the only traces they leave of their sway are to be 
found in the desolation with which they everywhere encompass themselves. 
They may be compared to a flight of locusts, eating up and destroying 
whatever they alight upon ; conferring no benefits in return ; and, at last, 
when swept from the face of the earth by some kindly blast, only remem- 
bered from the havoc they had committed. — Encyclopaedia Britannica, 
new edition, vol. iv. p. 12 ( J. irt. Athens. 

The barbarous anarchic despotism of Turkey, where the finest countries 
in the most genial climates in the world are wasted by peace more than any 
countries have been worried by war, — where arts are unknown, where 
manufactures languish, where science is extinguished, where agriculture 
decays, where the human race itself melts away and perishes under the eye 
of the observer. — Burke. 

The following is extracted from a work published in America, under the 
title of Letters from Constantinople and its environs, by an American ; 
and attributed to the pen of Commodore Porter, the United States Charge 
d'affaires at the Sublime Porte : At length we discovered, about two 
miles to the left of our road, a Turkish village, which may always be 
known by the cypress-trees and the burying-ground ; and, soon after this, 
an Armenian village, which may be known by the neat cultivation, the fine 
shady trees, the mill-race, and an air of primitive, patriarchal sort of com- 
fort which seems to- be thrown over it. You can, once in a while, see, at 
a distance, something like a petticoat moving about ; and here are herds 
of cattle, flocks of sheep, goats, &c. But none of these are visible on your 
approach to a Turkish town, where all is still and gloomy. Shopkeepers 
you will find sitting cross-legged, waiting for their customers, too lazy and 
indolent to rise, for the purpose of taking down an article for inspection. 
It is a truth that I have never seen a Turk buy anything since I have been 
in the country. They are absolutely too indolent to buy. Neither have I 
ever seen a Turk work, if there was a possibility of his being idle. I have 
never seen one stand, if there was a possibility of his being seated. A 
blacksmith sits cross-legged at his anvil, and seats himself when he shoes 
a horse. A carpenter seats himself when he saws, bores holes, or drives a 
nail, planes, dubs with his small adze, or chops with his hatchet (I be- 
lieve I have named all his tools), if it be possible to do so without 
standing. 

Nothing can be more gloomy than the appearance of things on entering 
a Turkish village. It is as quiet as the grave ; the streets are narrow ; the 
doors all shut and locked ; the windows all latticed ; not a human being to 
be seen in the filthy streets. A growling, half-starved dog, or a bitch with 
her hopeful progeny, which depend for their subsistence on some depository 
of filth, is all you meet with of animated nature. You proceed through 



140 APPENDIX. 

the inhospitable outskirts, despairing of meeting wherewith to satisfy the 
calls of nature, or a place of shelter, when you at length arrive at, per- 
haps, half a dozen filthy little shops of six feet square, in each of which you 
discover a solitary, squatting, silent, smoking Turk. He may glance his 
eyes at you, but will not turn his head : that would be too much trouble. 
Now, investigate the contents of these shops, and you will find as follows : 
five, or, perhaps, six girths, for pack-horses, made of goats' hair ; half a 
dozen halters for horses ; fifteen or twenty pounds of rancid Russian butter ; 
a small box, containing from one to two pounds of salt, and half a pound 
of ground pepper. A few bars of curd cheese, looking very like Marseilles 
soap ; not much better in taste, and not so good for digestion. One quart 
of black, salt olives ; half a pound of sewing twine, cut into needlefuls ; 
one clothes-line ; half a dozen loaves of brown bread ; and two bunches 
of onions, with a string of garlic. Nine times out of ten, you will find this 
to be the stock in trade of a Turkish village shopkeeper ; and, over this, in 
his pitiful box, will he sit and smoke, day after day, without seeking a pur- 
chaser, or apparently caring whether one comes or not. If one calls and 
asks if he has any particular article, his answer is, simply, without raising 
his eyes, "Yoke." (No.) " Can you inform me where I may procure the 
article?" "Yoke." It is of no use to try to get anything more out of 
him. He is as silent as the grave. If he has the article asked for, he 
hands it to you, and names the price. When the money is laid on the 
counter, he merely brushes it with his hand through the hole in the till, 
and then relapses into his former apathy. No compliments, no " thanks 
for favors received, " no " call again if you please. ' ' Not the slightest emotion 
can be discovered. He never raises his eyes to see who his customer is or 
was ; he sees nothing but the article sold, and the money ; and he would 
disdain to spend a breath or perform an action that was not indispensable 

to the conclusion of the bargain Give a Turk a mat to sleep 

on, a pipe, and a cup of coffee, and you give him the sum total of all 

earthly enjoyments 

The magnificent plain of Nice burst on our view. I have often dwelt 
with pleasure on the recollection of my agreeable surprise, when, descend- 
ing the mountains at a place (I think) called the Vent of Cordova, the 
lovely view of the valley of Mexico first presented itself to my astonished 
sight. No one, I will venture to say, who has travelled from Vera Cruz 
to Mexico, but recollects the spot I have reference to, and felt as I have felt. 
Let him recall to his mind the splendor of that scene, and he may then 
imagine the plain of Nice, in all its fertility and beauty ; not, indeed, so 
extensive, but more studded with trees, and equally so with villages, and 
presenting a picture to the eye and the imagination not to be surpassed. 
But, after a painful descent from our lofty eminence, by a very steep road, 
we found that, like the plain of Mexico, it was distance that gave to the 

scenery its principal enchantment Like Mexico, everything is 

beautiful in the distance, but nothing will bear examination. View the 
scene closely, and the charm vanishes. The large and fertile fields are miles 
from any human habitation ; and, if a solitary being or two happen to be 
laboring near, you find them covered with rags and vermin. The shepherd, 
with his numerous flocks and herds, is a half-starved, miserable wretch, 
covered with filthy sheep-skins, and disgusting to look at. His food, a dry 
crust, with perhaps an onion. Enter the villages, the streets are almost 
impassable from filth, and you meet only a ragged, dirty, squalid popula- 
tion of beggars. The noble fields and vineyards are the property of some 
hungry and rapacious lord, whose interests are confided to a cruel, hard- 



APPENDIX. 141 

hearted, and rapacious aga. The few in power, revelling in affluence and 
splendor, have reduced the mass of the people to a degree of misery which 
appears insupportable. This is Turkey. 



EXTRACTS FROM LARDNER'S CABINET CYCLOPAEDIA. 

HISTORY OF POLAND. 
Lewis. 1370—1382. 

By yielding to the exorbitant demands of the turbulent and interested 
nobles, by increasing their privileges and exempting them from the neces- 
sary contributions, he threw a disproportionate burden on the other orders 
of the state, and promoted that aristocratic ascendency before which mon- 
arch and throne were soon to bow. — p. 101. 

Hedwig. 1382—1386. 

The death of Lewis was speedily followed by troubles, raised chiefly by 
the turbulent nobles. Notwithstanding their oaths in favor of Mary and her 
husband Sigismund, — oaths in return for which they had extorted such 
great concessions, — they excluded both, with the design of extorting still 
greater from a new candidate. Sigismund advanced to claim his rights. A 
civil war desolated several provinces. — p. 102. 

Casimir IV. 1445—1492. 

Under this monarch aristocracy made rapid progress in Poland. When, 
on the conclusion of the war, he assembled a diet for the purpose of devis- 
ing means of paying the troops their arrears, it was resolved to resist the 
demand in a way which should compel him to relinquish it. Hitherto the 
diets had consisted of isolated nobles, whom the king's summons or their 
own will had assembled ; as their votes were irresponsible, and given gener- 
ally from motives of personal interest or prejudice, the advantage to the 
order at large had been purely accidental. Now, that order resolved to 
exercise a new and irresistible influence over the executive. As every noble 
could not attend the diet, yet as every one wished to have a voice in its 
deliberations, deputies were elected to bear the representations of those who 

could not attend What in England was the foundation of 

rational freedom, was in Poland subversive of all order, all -good govern- 
ment : in the former country, representation was devised as a check to 
feudal aristocracy, which shackled both king and nation ; in the latter it 
was devised by the aristocracy themselves, both to destroy the already too 
limited prerogatives of the crown, and to rivet the chain of slavery on a 

whole nation. — pp. 121,122 This very diet annulled the 

humane decree of Casimir the Great, which permitted a peasant to leave his 
master for ill usage, and enacted that in all cases such peasant might be 
demanded by his lord, — nay, that whoever harbored the fugitive should 
be visited with a heavy fine. This, and the assumption of judicial authority 
over their serfs, — for peasants they can no longer be called, — was a 
restoration of the worst evils of feudality. — p. 123. 



142 



APPENDIX. 



John Albert I. 1492— 150G. 



Evils of a nature still more to be dreaded menaced the murmuring king- 
dom. Aided by the Turks and Tartars, the Voivode of Wallachia pene- 
trated into Podolia and Polish Russia, the nourishing towns of which 
he laid in ashes, and returned with immense booty and one hundred 

thousand captives. — p. 125 Under his reign, not only was 

the national independence in great peril, but internal freedom, the freedom 
of the agricultural class, was annihilated. At the diet of Petrikaus (held in 
1496), the selfish aristocracy decreed that henceforth no citizen or peasant 
should aspire to the ecclesiastical dignities, which they reserved for them- 
selves alone. The peasantry, too, were prohibited from other tribunals than 
those of their tyrannical masters ; they were reduced to the most deplorable 
slavery. — p. 127. 

Alexander. 1501 — 1506. 

Thus ended a reign more deplorable, if possible, than that of John Albert. 
— p. 129. 

Sigismund I. 1506—1548. 

He had, however, many obstacles to encounter ; neither the patriotism of 
his views nor the influence of his character could always restrain the restless 
tumults of his nobles, who, proud of their privileges and secure of impunity, 
thwarted his wisest views whenever caj)rice impelled them. Then the oppo- 
sition of the high and petty nobility ; the eagerness of the former to distin- 
guish themselves from the rest of their order, by titles as well as riches ; the 
hostility of both towards the citizens and burghers, whom they wished to 
enslave as effectually as they had done the peasantry ; and, lastly, the 
fierceness of contention between the adherents of the reformed and old 
religion, filled his court with factions and his cities with discontent. — 
p. 136. 

Interregnum. Henry de Valois. 1572 — 1574. 

The death of Sigismund Augustus, the last of the Jagellos, gave the Polish 
nobles what they had long wanted — the privilege of electing their monarchs, 
and of augmenting their already enormous powers, by every new pacta con- 

venta.* At first, it was expected that the election would be 

made by deputies only ; but, on the motion of a leading palatine, that, as 
all nobles were ecpaal in the eye of the law, so all ought to concur in the 
choice of a ruler, it was carried by acclamation that the assembly should 
consist of the whole body of the equestrian order — of all, at least, who were 
disposed to attend. This was another fatal innovation ; a diet of two or 
three hundred members, exclusive of the senators, might possibly be man- 
aged ; but what authority could control a hundred thousand ? — pp. 148, 149. 

This feeble prince soon sighed for the banks of the Seine ; amidst the 
ferocious people whose authority he was constrained to recognize, and who 

despised him for his imbecility, he had no hope of enjoyment 

The truth is, no criminal ever longed to flee from his fetters so heartily as 

Henry from his imperious subjects His flight was soon made 

known A pursuit was ordered ; but Henry was already on 

the lands of the empire before he was overtaken by the grand chamberlain, 
to whom he presented a ring and continued his journey. — p. 157. 

* Pacta conventa meant a fresh bargain which was made by the nobles at every succeed- 
ing election of a king, and by which their own powers and privileges were constantly 
augmented. 



APPSNDTX. 143 



Stephkx. 1575—1586. 

After the deposition of Henry, no less than five foreign and two native 

princes were proposed as candidates for the crown During 

the struggle of Stephen with his rebellious subjects, the Muscovites had laid 
waste Livonia. To punish their audacity, and wrest from their grasp the 
conquests they had made during the reign of his immediate predecessor, was 
now his object. War, however, was more easily declared than made ; the 
treasury was empty, and the nobles refused to replenish it. Of them it 
might truly be said, that, while they eagerly concurred in any burdens 
laid on the other orders of the state, — on the clergy and the burghers, — 
those burdens they would not so much as touch with one of their fingers. 

The Polish nobles were less alive to the glory of their country 

than to the preservation of their monstrous privileges, which they appre- 
hended might be endangered Under so vigilant and able a ruler 

Hcwever signal the services which this great prince rendered to the republic, 
he could not escape the common lot of his predecessors — the jealousy, the 
opposition and the hatred, of a licentious nobility ; nor could he easily quell 
the tumults which arose among them. — pp. 158, 160, 161, 165. 

Sigismuxd III. 1586—1632. 

As usual, the interregnum afforded ample opportunity for the gratification 
of individual revenge, and of the worst passions of our nature. The feud 
between Zborowskis and Zamoyskis was more deadly than ever. Both fac- 
tions appeared in the field of election, with numerous bodies of armed adher- 
ents. The former amounted to ten thousand ; the latter were less strong in 

number, but more select. — p. 167 His reign was, as might 

be expected from his character, disastrous. The loss of Moldavia and Wal 
lachia, of a portion of Livonia, and perhaps, still more, of the Swedish crown 
for himself, and the Muscovite for his son, embittered his declining years. 
Even the victories which shed so bright a lustre over his kingdom were but 
too dearly pui'chased by the blood and treasure expended. The internal 
state of Poland during this period is still worse. It exhibits little more than 
his contentions with his nobles or with his Protestant subjects, and the 
oppression of the peasants by their avaricious, tyrannical and insulting 
masters — an oppression which he had the humanity to pity, but not the 
vigor to alleviate. — -p. 178. 

Uladislas VII. (Vasa.) 1632—1618. 

But all the glories of this reign, all the advantages it procured to the 
republic, were fatally counterbalanced by the haughty and inhuman policy 
of the nobles towards the Cossacks. In the central provinces of the republic 
their unbounded power was considerably restrained in its exercise by their 
habitual residence among their serfs ; but the distant possessions of the 
Ukraine never saw the face of their rapacious landlords, but were abandoned 

to Jews, the most unpopular and hateful of stewards Obtaining 

no redress from the diet, — the membei*s of which, however jealous of their 
own liberties, would allow none to the people, — they had laid their com- 
plaints before the throne of the late monarch, Sigismund III. With every 
disposition, that monarch was utterly powerless to relieve them ; Uladislas 
was equally well-intentioned, and equally unable to satisfy them. On one 
occasion the latter prince is said to have replied to the deputies from these 
sons of the wilderness, " Have you no sabres ? " Whether such a reply wai 
given them or not, both sabres and lances were speedily in requisition. 



144 APPENDIX. 

Their first efforts were unsuccessful. This failure rather enraged than dis- 
couraged them ; and their exasperation was increased by the annihilation 
of their religious hierarchy, of their civil privileges, of their territorial reve- 
nues, and by their degradation to the rank of serfs ■ — all which iniquities 
were done by the diet of nobles, 1638. Nay, a resolution was taken, at the 
same time, to extirpate both their faith and themselves, if they showed any 
disposition to escape the bondage doomed them. Again they armed, and, by 
their combination, so imposed on the troops sent to subdue them, that a 
promise was made them of restoring the privileges which had been so wick- 
edly and so impolitically wrested from them. Such a promise, however, 
was not intended to be fulfilled ; the Cossacks, in revenge, made frequent 
irruptions into the palatinate of the grand duchy, and no longer prevented 
the Tartars from similar outrages. Some idea may be formed of the extent 
of these depredations, when it is known that from the princely domains of 
one noble alone thirty thousand peasants were carried away, and sold as 
slaves to the Turks and Tartars. Things were in this state, when a new 
instance of outrageous cruelty, inflicted upon the family of a veteran Cos- 
sack, Bogdan Chmielnicki by name, — whose valor, under the ensigns of 
the republic, was known far beyond the bounds of the nation, — spread the 
flames of insurrection from one end of the Ukraine to the other, and lent 

fearful force to their intensity The bolt of vengeance, so long 

suspended, at length fell. At the head of forty thousand Tartars, and oi 
many times that number of Cossacks, who had wrongs to be redressed as 
well as he, and whom the tale of his had summoned around him with electric 
rapidity, he began his fearful march. Two successive armies of the republic, 
which endeavored to stem the tide of inundation, were utterly swept away 
by the torrent, their generals and superior officers led away captives, and 
seventy thousand peasants consigned to hopeless bondage. 

At this critical moment expired Uladislas, a misfortune scarcely inferior 
to the insurrection of the Cossacks ; for never did a state more urgently 
demand the authority of such a monarch. Under him, the republic was 
prosperous, notwithstanding her wars with the Muscovites and Turks ; and, 
had his advice been taken, the Cossacks would have remained faithful to her, 
and opposed an effectual barrier to the incursions of the Tartars. But 
eternal justice had doomed the chastisement of a haughty, tyrannical and 
unprincipled aristocracy, on whom reasoning, entreaty or remonstrance, 
could have no effect, and whose understandings were blinded by hardness of 
heart. In their conduct during these reigns there appears something like 
fatality, which may be explained by a maxim confirmed by all human expe- 
rience — Quern Deus vult perdere,prias dementat.* — pp. 182 — 185. 

Interregnum — John Casimir. 1698. 

Never was interregnum more fatal than that which followed the death of 
Uladislas. The terrible Bogdan, breathing vengeance against the republic, 
seized on the whole of the Ukraine, and advanced towards Red Russia. He 
was joined by vast hordes of Tartars from Bessarabia and the Crimea, who 
longed to assist in the contemplated annihilation of the republic. This con- 
federacy of Mussulmans, Socinians and Greeks, all actuated by feelings of 
the most vindictive character, committed excesses at which the soul revolts ; 
the churches and monasteries were levelled with the ground, the nuns were 
violated, priests were forced, under the raised poniard, not merely to con- 
tract but to consummate marriage with the trembling inmates of the clois- 
ters, and, in general, both were subsequently sacrificed ; the rest of the 

* Those whom God would destroy he first deprives of reason. 



APPENDIX. 145 



clergy were despatched without mercy. Bat the chief weight of vengeance 
fell on the nobles, who were doomed to a lingering death, whose wives and 
daughters were stripped naked before their eyes, and, after violation, were 
whipped to death in sight of the ruthless invaders. — p. 186. 

Scarcely an evil can be mentioned which did not afflict the kingdom 
during the eventful reign of this monarch. To the horrors of invasion by 
so many enemies, must now be added those of domestic strife. — p. 196. 
. . . . In this beautiful picture of disasters abroad and anarchy at 
home, of carnage and misery on every side, the disbanded military now took 
a prominent part. — p. 197 In short, the reign of this mon- 
arch, while it exhibits a continued succession of the worst evils which have 
afflicted nations, is unredeemed by a single advantage to the republic ; its 
only distinction is the fearfully accelerated impulse which it gave to the 
decline of Poland. The fact speaks little either for monarch or diet ; but he 
must not be blamed with undue severity, — his heart was better than his 
head, and both were superior to those of the turbulent, fierce and ungovern- 
able men who composed a body at once legislative and executive. 

Michael. 1668—1673. 

The first act of the diet of nobles was to declare that no Polish king should 
hereafter abdicate ; the fetters he might assume were thus rendered ever- 
lasting. — p. 199 At this time, no less than five armed con- 
federacies were opposed to each other : of the great against the king ; of 
the loyal in his favor ; of the army in defence of their chief, whom Michael 
and his party had resolved to try, as implicated in the French party ; of 
the Lithuanians against the Poles ; and, finally, of the servants against their 
masters, the peasants against their lords. — p. 203. 

John III. (Sobieski.) 1674—1696. 

Though he convoked diet after diet, in the hope of obtaining the necessary 
supplies, diet after diet was dissolved by the fatal veto ; for the same reason, 
he could not procure the adoption of the many salutary courses he recom- 
mended, to banish anarchy, to put the kingdom on a permanent footing of 
defence, and to amend the laws. — p. 209. 

Frederick Augustus. 1696 — 1733. 

Frederick Augustus died early in 1763. His reign was one continued 
scene of disasters ; many of which may be imputed to himself, but more, 
perhaps, to the influence of circumstances. — p. 225. 

Frederick Augustus II. 1733 — 1763. 

Though, under Frederick Augustus, Poland entered on no foreign war, 
his reign was the most disastrous in her annals. While the Muscovite and 
Prussian armies traversed her plains at pleasure, and extorted whatever 
they pleased ; while one fiction openly opposed another, not merely in the 
diet, but on the field ; while every national assembly was immediately dis- 
solved by the veto, the laws could not be expected to exercise much 
authority. They were, in fact, utterly disregarded ; the tribunals were 
divided, or forcibly overturned, and brute force prevailed on every side. 
The miserable peasants vainly sought the protection of their lords, who 
were either powerless or indifferent to their complaints. While thousands 
expired of hunger, a far greater number sought to relieve their necessi- 
ties by open depredations. Bands of robbers, less formidable only than the 
13 



146 APPENDIX. 

kindred masses congregated under the name of soldiers, infested the country 
in every direction. Famine aided the devastations of both ; the population, 
no less than the wealth of the kingdom, decreased with frightful rapidity. 

— p. 232. 

Stanislas Augustus. 1763 — 1795. 

During the few following years, Poland presented the spectacle of a 
country exhausted alike by its own dissensions and the arms of its enemies. 
The calm was unusual, and would have been a blessing could any salutary 
laws have been adopted by the diets. Many such, indeed, were proposed, 
the most signal of which was the emancipation of the serfs ; but the very 
proposition was received with such indignation by the selfish nobles, that 
Russian gold was not wanted to defeat the other measures with which it was 
accompanied — the suppression of the veto, and the establishment of an 

hereditary monarchy. — p. 242 The republic was thus erased 

from the list of nations, after an existence of near ten centuries. That a 
country without government (for Poland had none, properly so called, after 
the extinction of the Jagellos, 1572), without finances, without army, and 
depending for its existence, year after year, on tumultuous levies, ill-disci- 
plined, ill-armed, and worse paid, should have so long preserved its inde- 
pendence, in defiance, too, of the powerful nations around, and with a great 
portion of its own inhabitants, whom ages of tyranny had exasperated, hostile 
to its success, is the most astonishing fact in all history. What valor must 
that have been which could enable one hundred thousand men to trample 
on a whole nation naturally prone to revolt, and bid defiance to Europe and 
Asia, to Christian and Mussulman, both ever ready to invade the republic ! 

- p. 256. 



MR. COBDEN ON THE « EASTERN QUESTION." 
Though it has been stated in the " Introduction " that the principles and 
facts of Mr. Cobden's preceding work are such as time cannot essentially 
change, it may be objected that such changes have taken place in the con- 
dition of Turkey as very materially modify them. How far such an 
objection is well grounded, — at least, of how much consideration it appears 
worthy in the mind of Mr. Cobden, — may be seen from his recently expressed 
opinions. And they will be read with the more interest, as they bear directly 
on the present aspect of the " Eastern question." It may seem to the 
reader whose prejudices are strongly enlisted in behalf of Turkey as against 
Russia that Mr. Cobden's position is directly the reverse,— that he is in 
favor of Russia as against Turkey. But it will be seen that such an opinion 
does him injustice. He is a friend of peace. Peace is his great national 
policy. And, in his opinion, no advantage can accrue to England from an 
armed intervention on behalf of Turkey, to compensate for the injury done 
to the arts and institutions of peace in England, and consequently her 
greatest and most enduring influence for good on the world. 

The following is an extract of a letter from Mr. Cobden, found in the 



APPENDIX. 147 

National Era for January 5th, 1854, with a few preliminary editorial 
remarks. 

MR. COBDEN AND THE EASTERN QUESTION. 

The position of Mr. Cobden, the great apostle of free trade in England, 
has been widely misrepresented both in that country and in this. He is 
continually charged with hostility to the Turks and sympathy with the 
Russians, when the truth is, he is simply anxious to preserve England from 
the curse of war, and to break up the old balance of poAver policy. He i3 
for neutrality, and would leave those whom he regards as little more than 
semi-barbarians, on both sides the Prutli, to fight out their own battles'. 
But this would be a very "un-English " policy ; " for when," asks Mr. 
Cobden, " did John Bull ever allow fighting to go on, in any part of the 
world, without trying to have a hand in it ? " 

To illustrate more fully the position of Mr. Cobden, we take the liberty 
of transcribing the following passage from a letter which we lately received 
from him : 

" Our fire-eaters are clamorous for war to uphold the ' integrity and 
independence (!) of the Turkish empire;' and they urge arguments in 
defence of their policy, with which I have to combat, by showing that 
liberty, commerce, civilization and progress, are not involved (as they 
maintain) in the preservation of Turkey, but that these precious interests 
are quite as likely to be promoted by the Russians as the Turks, though 
I would not willingly trust them to either. Instead of refuting my state- 
ments, my opponents turn upon me, and charge me with being the friend 
of Russia. My views upon the received maxims of our foreign policy are 
about as little in harmony with the current feelings of the day as yours are 
upon slavery. I disbelieve in the old superstitions of the ' balance of 
power,' the ' Eastern question,' &c. I am far more concerned about the 
' Western question' — I mean the progress in wealth, numbers and intel- 
ligence, of the United States — than the brute force of Russia. Your school- 
masters are more to be dreaded by us than the drill-sergeants of the Czar. 
I consider that the importance of these Eastern countries is very much 
exaggerated. Constantinople was a great seat of empire when the whole 
civilized world was confined to the eastern end of the Mediterranean. It 
is now in a cul-de-sac, remote from the great avenues of commerce. When 
I am told that the possession of this city would make Russia the mistress 
of the world, I laugh, and ask why four hundred years' possession of it has 
brought the Turks to their present decrepid condition ? However, I am 
quite in a minority with these opinions. 

" The ' Eastern question ' looks very complicated and awkward just now. 
* * The first gun fired between Russia and the western powers may be 
a signal for a European conflagration. If you are wise in America, you 
will cling to your traditional policy of neutrality, and profit by the inculp- 
able folly and wickedness of the Old World. But I see you are following 
our bad example in your policy of annexation. Apropos of the Cuban 
question, — Are your journals really serious in what they profess to believe 
of our designs upon that island ? If so, all the canards are not to be found 
on the Thames ! Such credulity would be a dangerous element in the 
hands of a designing government. I have a strong presentiment that, if 
you get possession of Cuba, it will be the grave of American slavery. God 
does sometimes allow such spectacles as that of a great nation going blindly 
and passionately forward in a course certain, if successful, to lead to the 
ruin of the cause which it seeks to uphold ! " 



148 



APPENDIX. 



The following is a speech delivered by Mr. Cobden in the " Peace Confer- 
ence," held in Edinburgh last October : 

Mr. Cobden, M.P., then rose, and was received with loud and prolonged 
applause. He said : Perhaps it was proper that our esteemed chairman, 
and the gentlemen who have preceded me, should enter into a few explana- 
tions as to the peculiar tenets of this Conference at the present moment, 
deeming it necessary that we should not be misunderstood at a time when 
they conceived that this movement was encountering peculiar opposition. 
Well, I am glad that they did so, though I don't intend myself to assume 
the tone of one acting on the defensive on this occasion ; but it is well that 
our friends have explained what are the peculiar objects, and what are the 
doctrines, of this association. My experience in past movements of a pub- 
lic kind teaches me this, that it is difficult, very difficult, when you have 
got hold of a good cause, to bring its opponents to a fair and candid discus- 
sion of what you really mean. It is a great deal easier to misrepresent you 
than to meet you when you happen to be right ; and therefore, instead of 
meeting us such as we are, and opposing our objects such as we represent 
them to be, when we hold a meeting like this, our opponents raise the cry, 
" ! these are a set of fanatics, who, if the enemy were at our gates, 
would cry ' Peace, peace ! ' these are the people who want us immediately 
to disband every soldier and every sailor that we have, and thus to invite 
the invasion of some foreign foe ; these are the people who would lay us 
prostrate at the feet of the first horde of brigands who chose to land upon 
our shores." Now, I wish to make my profession of fiiith most distinctly 
with regard to this, and I shall do so very shortly. I don't believe that 
anybody is coming to attack us at all. I have never heard or read in 
modern history of anybody that meditated an attack upon our shores ; I 
will hardly except even that of Napoleon the Great, because he came and 
took a look at us, and then he turned away to a more inviting foe. But 
what my reading and experience have taught me is this, that the danger 
which the English people have to apprehend arises from that peculiarity 
in their temperament, that idiosyncrasy of their nature, — for nations have 
idiosyncrasies as well as individuals, — Avhich leads us constantly to go and 
seek grounds of quarrel and objects of hostility, even to the remotest parts 
of the globe. I have seen that in past times Englishmen have been success- 
ively fighting the battles of almost every people on the globe ; but I have 
seen also that — whether the objects of our intervention in these remote quar- 
rels have been to advance the principles of civil and religious liberty, as I 
have sometimes heard it said, or to promote the progress of a freer com- 
mercial intercourse — I have seen that our objects have steadily eluded our 
grasp ; and the only result, almost the only practical result, which I have 
seen to this characteristic of our country, is this, that we have loaded our- 
selves with an amount of debt greater than that of all the nations of the 
world besides, and that we are mistrusted, and not liked, by almost every 
nation in Christendom. Nor do I see that the spirit of late times has been 
Tery much changed for the better; for, if we cannot be persuaded to go and 
attack somebody else, then it seems to be equally easy to persuade us that 
somebody is coming to attack us. Now, I beg it most emphatically to be 
understood that, when I attend these peace meetings, it is not that I wish to 
bow down our necks and invite invaders to come amongst us ; nobody in- 
tends to invade you, nobody wants to invade you ; the quarrels which you 
have had, the wars which you have been engaged in, and the debts which 
you have contracted, have been all of your own seeking. And what I want 
now — and it was never more necessary than at the present moment — 



APPENDIX. 149 

what I want now is this, to put a check, however feeble, on the tendency of 
a portion of the people of this country, who seem to me bent upon erecting 
into a maxim that which we have hitherto fincied only to apply to princes 
and despots, — that peoples learn nothing and forget nothing. And when 
I speak of our people, I am not to draw down upon myself the taunt or re- 
buke, which would place me in so disadvantageous a position, that I am ap- 
pearing here conscious that I am opposing the direct and settled opinions 
and convictions of the great mass of my countrymen. No ; the great mass 
of our countrymen in this question are now standing, observing, and ready 
to hear and learn, and to be convinced. But I speak of men who, if we 
were not here, might take possession of the public mind, and, if they can 
represent the whole people, then the policy of the country must follow their 
dictates. I say we have seen lately that it is not difficult to persuade the 
English people that others are coming to attack them. I do not want to 
refer to what has occurred six months ago, for the purpose of triumph or 
exultation. I have never alluded, as far as I am aware, in the House of 
Commons or elsewhere, to that most consummate triumph which this Con- 
ference has enjoyed, in the change that has taken place, since we last met in. 
Manchester, on the subject of the French invasion. But it is necessary to 
allude to it now, because the very same pens are being dipped in venom to 
record the gibes and sneers at this Conference which we had to encounter 
when we were in Manchester. And although I do not want to deprive 
them of the pleasure of abusing and caricaturing us, I think we have a fair 
right to ask the people of this country to estimate the force of the present 
attacks of those individuals by the value of their opinions just six months 
ago. But, more than that, I say that the position in which this country is 
at present placed, with reference to the Russian question, is distinctly to be 
traced to the conduct which these foolish people pursued nine months ago. 
I don't speak vaguely or idly. I speak from a knowledge short only of in- 
formation from the first parties acting in these proceedings, when I say that 
that which has been done in the East by the Emperor of Russia was done 
from the deliberate calculation that it was impossible that France and Eng- 
land could unite to oppose him. We all know that it is an old and tradi- 
tional policy of the Russian empire to encroach upon the dominions of the 
Mahometan people that are at their side. We know that that has been a 
maxim of state policy in Russia for the last hundred and fifty years. But 
we know also that the encroachments of Russia upon Turkey have been 
steadily resisted, not at all times successfully, but still resisted by the com- 
bined action of the western powers of Europe, who have made it part of 
the state policy of Europe to oppose the aggrandizement of Russia in the 
East. The Russian emperor saw not only in the public prints of this 
country, but he observed in the speeches of our statesmen in the House of 
Commons, the expression of an opinion and feeling of mistrust and of hor- 
ror of the character of the sovereign of our next neighbor, France. He 
saw that in the House of Commons we had made pi'o vision for calling out 
the militia, avowedly in order to resist a French invasion ; he heard men 
who, we are now told, were the very trustworthy peacemakers of this coun- 
try — he heard these men, and I heard them myself, say that in one single 
night sixty thousand French soldiers might come from Cherbourg and land 
upon our shores ; we were told that for us, the peace party, to assume for 
a moment the possibility that the Emperor of France was not a brigand and 
a pirate — to argue for a moment that the French people were not capable 
of coming and throwing themselves upon our shores, without any previous 
notice being given, without any declaration of war, without any cause of 
offence, like a party of buccaneers or pirates — to assume that such was not 

13* 



150 APPENDIX. 

their natural course of action, argued that we were the most credulous and 
foolish fanatics in Britain. The Emperor of Russia heard and saw all this, 
and he naturally concluded that it was utterly impossible that the French 
and English could unite again t« join in one armament to resist his en- 
croachments in the east of Europe. And his plans have been laid in the 
southern parts of Russia ever since last September or October ; ever since 
this cry began they have beeD' steadily pursued ; as this foolish spirit of 
hostility to our neighbors the French came more and more to prevail in 
high quarters, they were the more determinedly persevered in ; and now 
the consequence is that the Emperor of Russia has found, when it is too 
late, that those foolish people whom he mistook for the public opinion of 
England have entirely misled him. 

But what do we see, — we, who were denounced as the most credulous fools 
for presuming to say that the Emperor Napoleon did not meditate an inva- 
sion of our shores ? What do we see now ? The very minister who talked 
of the French coming from Cherbourg in one night, with sixty thousand 
men, to invade our coasts, I myself heard say, that, now the French and 
English were united, and had one common bond of interest, and were united 
by sentiments of mutual confidence and esteem, they were a power against 
which it was in vain for Russia to contend, for all Europe would be power- 
less against such an irresistible combination. And what did I hear at the 
end of last session of Parliament in the Queen's speech, as if it was to give 
to the peace party the climax of your triumph ? Not only does the Queen 
in her speech in Parliament, ere it separated, declare that she is on the best 
terms of amity with the French nation, but she rather goes out of the way 
to add that she is also on the best possible footing with the Emperor of the 
French. Now, I have often thought of supposing the case of an individual 
who had been ordered away from this country, as many persons are for the 
benefit of their health, and supposing he had left our snores last January 
to take a voyage to Australia, returning again without remaining there, 
merely making the circuit of the globe for the benefit of his health. He 
left England preparing her militia, and fortifying her coasts, general 
officers writing to me offering to lay a wager that the French would come 
and invade us. And he saw our inspectors of cavalry and artillery moving 
about the southern coasts, deputations from the railway companies waiting 
upon the Admiralty and the Ordnance to see how soon the commissariat 
and the ordnance supplies could be transmitted from the Tower to Dover, 
or to Portsmouth ; he left in the midst of all these preparations for the 
French invasion ; he makes the circuit of the globe, and, as he could see no 
newspaper, — for one great motive in sending a care-worn individual on 
such a voyage is to keep him away from politicians and the post-office, — 
he knows nothing of what has occurred during his absence. Well, he 
lands here in September, and the first thing he reads of in the newspapers 
is, that the French and English fleets are lying side by side in Besika Bay. 
He immediately says that there is to be a great battle ; he turns to the 
leading article of the \Qry paper that had told him before he left the coun- 
try that the French emperor was a brigand and a pirate, and that the 
French people were about to invade England, without notice or declaration 
of war, — he turns to a leader in this paper — the very first he has seen 
after he has arrived in England, — and there he finds the English and 
French are so cordially united that their fleets are lying in Besika Bay, 
under the command of Admiral Dundas ; that we are prepared, if neces- 
sary, to send an army to be put under a French general, and that we are 
going into action probably to-morrow with the Russian fleet. Now, the first 
thing that we would naturally ask would be this, — But can you trust this 



APPENDIX. 151 

individual whom, when I left Britain, you were chai*acterizing as a brigand 
and a pirate ? What has happened ? Has anything happened to prove that 
these peace people have been right, and that you were wrong ? What change 
has taken place ? What does this mean ? What guarantee has this man 
given you that when you go into action with the Russian fleet, he has not 
previously come to an understanding with the Emperor of Russia, and that, 
instead of joining you in firing broadsides into the Russian fleet, he will 
not join Russia in demolishing yours ? And then, unless he has undergone 
a great change, — and you have not explained to me how it happened, — what 
proofs have you that when he has joined the Russian fleet in destroying 
yours, he will not come and ravage your coasts, burn down your houses, 
seize the bank, and carry off the Queen ? Of all these things there is no 
explanation. I must confess, and I say it with the greatest regret, that my 
experience of late does not make me think more highly than I used to do 
of 'the statesmanship in this country ; because, if the men having the con- 
duct of our public affairs were in earnest in what they told us nine months 
ago regarding this government and this individual, — if they were in earnest, 
and not charlatans imposing on us from day to day, — how are they now justi- 
fied in putting our ships alongside of the ships of such a man ? If they were 
not in earnest, then what sort of men have you got in power ? I want to 
have their explanation about this. If I did not pity all those people who 
were attacking us nine months ago, . — if I were not, in the spirit of a friend 
of peace, to forget and forgive, — I could not have had a greater triumph than 
to have brought down the papers and read extracts from what they were 
saying when we met in Manchester, and anticipated what they are getting 
ready for us in two or three days to come. Why, don't you remember the 
caricature in which your humble servant was represented with very long 
ears, thus — (placing his hands to his head, amidst loud laughter) . — be- 
cause he stood up and declared that he did not believe that the French were 
coming to invade us ? Who has got the long ears and the fool's cap, now ? 
Well, I have alluded to all this, to show that there is a large number of 
people in this country who are ready to believe anything that is told them 
about some foreign foe coming to attack us ; and the reason is this — we 
have too many people who are ignorant of the state of society abroad, and 
who don't do justice to the condition in which people are placed in other 
countries. They have too depreciating an opinion both of their economical 
condition and also of their moral qualities, or they never would believe 
these things. And it is the ignorance of what is going on in other coun- 
tries — it is the fact that we are not sufficiently informed, and cannot be 
sufficiently informed, of what is going on in other countries — that is one 
great reason why I argue against our lending ourselves to interference in 
the affairs of other countries. The Spaniards, who have a great number 
of wise sayings, tell us that a fool knows more of what is going on in his 
own house than the wise man does of that which is passing in his neigh- 
bor's. But now you find those who are not wise men going together to 
call out for war with Russia about the Eastern question, and I confess to 
you that I have seen with perfect amazement the amount of ignorance 
regarding the Turkish empire ; an amount of ignorance just exactly par- 
allel to that displayed with reference to the condition of France, and by the 
same persons — persons whom I would have expected, of all men in the 
world, to have had more knowledge of these affairs. For instance, with 
regard to the condition of Turkey in Europe, and the condition of the 
Christian part of the population of European Turkey, why, our people, I 
should have thought, would have sympathized with the mass of the people 
in Turkey ; but I find that all their sympathies went for the minority of 



152 APPENDIX. 

the people — for that dominant class or caste who are oppressing the majority 
of the people of Turkey. Now, I don't say that this is any ground why we 
should go to war in order to remedy the evils which exist in Turkey. But 
I mean to say this, that, if we are going to war, it is of all things necessary 
to know what we are going to do, otherwise we may incur all the expense 
which was incurred in the last French war, and you may end in totally 
failing to accomplish what you sought to effect. Now, I tell you, from my 
knowledge of the Turkish empire, that not only all the king's horses and all 
the king's men, but all the horses and the men of all the kings and emperors 
in the world, cannot maintain the Mahometan population of Turkey in 
Europe. There are seeds of decay and dissolution to be found, which, in the 
very nature of things, you cannot combat against by fleets or armies. 

Well, it may be said to me, " Why are you so presumptuous as to say 
that you know this?" I don't profess to know more than other people 
might know, if they chose to inquire about it. Nearly twenty years ago, 
as my friend Mr. Tait, the publisher, happens to know, when there was 
some outcry about this Eastern question, I commenced writing upon it. It 
does not follow, however, because I wrote then on the Turkish question, 
that I knew more than other people ; for we find every day how easy it is 
for people to write upon the subject and know nothing about it. But during 
the interval from that time to this I have paid a visit to Turkey, and I 
have endeavoi-ed to make myself acquainted with everything which has 
passed, and with everything which has been written by others who have 
been there. And I confess that I see with utter amazement the prev- 
alent ignorance that exists in this country as to what they are going 
to fight about. They are going to fight to maintain Mahometanism in 
Europe. But the precepts of the Koran are in opposition to the laws of 
nature, which are the laws of God ; and the people who have that Koran 
for their law cannot be perpetuated in Europe alongside of a Christian 
population. Why, you have in Turkey in Europe three or four millions 
of Turks ; and you have ten or twelve millions of Christians. I speak of 
what is generally admitted ; because, as there is no census of the people, 
one cannot speak with precise accuracy. Well, the Turks have been for 
four hundred years the dominant race ; they have had all the power in the 
country ; they have administered the laws ; they are the sole part of the 
population that has been armed. The Christians have been treated like 
dogs, and are called dogs ; they have had no social status whatever ; the 
Koran acknowledges no relation between the Mahometan conquerors and 
the Christians, but that of master and slave ; either kill them or make 
them pay tribute is the distinct law of the Koran. Up to this moment, 
there is no other relationship between the Mahometan governors and the 
Christian subjects than that which I have described. Well, in spite of all 
that, what is the state of matters at this moment ? The Turks are a decay- 
ing people ; as Lamartine said, — and if any man was favorable to them, 
it was Lamartine, — " Turkey is perishing for want of Turks." Well, not- 
withstanding all these advantages, I say the Turks are a declining popu- 
lation , while the Christians are constantly increasing by their side. But not 
merely so ; all the wealth, all the accumulation of wealth, all the enterprise, 
all the intelligence, all the progress, whether moral or material, belong to the 
Christian population of European Turkey. Now, you may hear of a superior 
governing an inferior race, as in the case of our own Indian empire ; but that 
is only the case when the intelligence, the wealthy all the real progi-ess of a 
country, and all the resources of science, are on the side of the dominant 
race ; but you never yet knew, and you never will know, a race perpet- 
uating the rule over another where these conditions are all reversed, and 



APPENDIX. 



153 



where that race is the more ignorant, the least wealthy, the least enter- 
prising, and altogether, in every respect by which you could mark the pro- 
gress of power in a people, inferior to those whom they pretend to govern. 
Well, this being the condition of things, the Emperor of Russia steps in, and 
he says, " I intend to insure to these Christians in Turkey in Europe the 
same treatment ; I intend to insure to these Christians under the authority 
of the Porte the same treatment which Christians having the protection of 
the French government have in Turkey." Well, that is what he asks ; and 
England steps in, and France steps in, to resist this, and to advise the 
Sultan to oppose it, because they say Russia meditates some selfish and 
aggressive designs. That is very true ; but let me tell you that the people of 
this world — that is, the unprivileged masses of all countries — have ever 
gained their privileges and franchise by being lifted up by some nobles, or 
by some tyrants of kings, who had sinister objects in trying to enlist their 
sympathies. They wanted to gain something out of them ; and it was by 
catering for the sympathies of the millions by nobles and kings in this 
country that the masses of the people were lifted from their serfdom into 
citizenship ; and, no doubt, the Emperor of Russia has the same sinister 
object in view. He wishes to establish an imperium in imperio in Turkey, 
and I have not the least doubt that he will succeed. I speak with great 
diffidence, because I do not think that anybody not there on the spot, and 
having the best opportunities of knowing what is the condition of things 
there, is capable of speaking with authority ; but, from all I can learn, it 
is this, — Christians are glad to get increased and improved toleration and 
security against Mussulman wrong and violence, be it by the intervention 
of Russia or anybody else. Take one fact which has transpired. It has 
come out that, until Russia made this interference, the Christian population 
of Turkey in Europe could not give evidence in a court of law against a 
Mussulman for murder or theft, or any one who committed any act of 
violence, either in the family or on the persons or property of any of them. 
That is a state of society worse than even negro slavery in America. But 
we are told that since the intervention by Russia an edict has emitted from 
the Sultan, giving to the Christians the right to give evidence against a 
Mussulman in a court of law. Does anybody doubt that the Christians will 
attribute this great boon they have received — a boon which, for the first 
time for four centuries, gives them the rights of citizenship — to the inter- 
vention of the Emperor of Russia ? 

My opinion is, that from the first there has been a great mistake in this 
matter. If we intended to interfere in the matter, we should have done 
what I believe we will come to do yet. We should have joined Russia in 
insisting on the fullest religious liberty and perfect social equality for the 
great majority of the Christians in Turkey in Europe : that is, if we inter- 
fere at all — for my opinions are too well known to render it possible for 
me to disguise them. What I would say is, leave them to themselves ; but, 
if you interfere in any way at all, the only practicable way in which you 
could hope to accomplish any good is, to join with Russia, as you have 
joined with her when she was not one whit more sincere than now, in ob- 
taining those rights and franchises which the Christian people of Turkey 
demand. But there seems to me to be a leaning towards the Turks in this 
matter, which would have appeared to me, unless we had been accustomed 
to see those passing hallucinations and fantasies of our time, impossible. 
The leaning in this country seems to be on the side of Turkey, simply 
because Russia is coming with some sinister design upon Turkey ; and there 
have been sent abroad the most gross misrepresentations as to the condition 
of the Turkish population in Turkey. I must confess I never was more 



154 APPENDIX. 

astonished in my life than on hearing a nobleman, who has been for ten or 
twelve years foreign minister in this country, and who, if any man in 
England ought to know the condition of Turkey in Europe, ought to know 
something about it, say, in his place in Parliament, " I assert, without 
fear of contradiction, that Turkey, so far from having gone back within the 
last thirty years, has made greater progress and improvement, in every 
^possible way, than perhaps was ever made by any other country during the 
same period. Compare the condition of Turkey now with what it was in 
the reign of the Sultan Mahmoud, either with regard to the system of gov- 
ernment as bearing upon the interests of the inhabitants, the state of the 
army and navy, the administration of justice, the condition of agriculture, 
manufactures and commerce, or religious toleration. I venture to say that, 
in all these respects, Turkey has made immense progress during the period 
I have mentioned." 

Now, I say, where are the proofs of that ? Consult any writer who has 
visited Turkey. Consult Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, who, when he left the 
embassy on leave of absence eighteen months ago, was entertained by the 
British population at Constantinople to a banquet, and who there referred 
to " the corruption which eats into the very foundations of society, and a 
combination of force, fraud and intrigue, which obstruct the march of 
progress, and poison the very atmosphere in which they prevail." And 
again, he alludes, with the profoundest grief, " to the signs of weakness and 
error which surround him, to the financial embarrassments of the govern- 
ment, and the great charter issued by the present Sultan being discredited 
by the non-execution of its promises." This is the opinion of a grave, 
sedate, and long-experienced diplomatist, speaking in public : and if he 
could say as much as that, and if every recent writer on the subject, up to 
the latest, gives the same opinion, what must the present condition of Turkey 
in Europe be ? I must confess that I never was more astonished in my life 
than on hearing that statement of the noble lord. It appears to me that 
we are running, from some motive or other, precisely the same course as in 
the French invasion panic. For a moment of temporary triumph, for a 
mere momentary cheer, we have statesmen making statements of this 
description ; and I record here my deliberate and solemn conviction that 
what I have read here of the speeeh of Lord Palmerston was the very 
thing which, of all others, he would be most reluctant to see reproduced on 
this or any other occasion. 

But, I say, what can be the motive of misleading the people of the 
country on this or any other subject ? Are we to be expected to go blindly 
into a war to accomplish an impossibility ? Does anybody that knows 
Turkey believe that a war with Russia would ever leave the Turks remain- 
ing as a people in Europe, with three times the number of Christians around 
them, and these possessing all the wealth and all the enterprise of the 
country, though totally disarmed. I say, why are we proposing to rush 
blindly into this war ? There may be one interpretation of it. It is pos- 
sible that our government has told Turkey that if Turkey will resist these 
attempts of Russia we shall support her ; and I have no hesitation in say- 
ing that, if our government has said this, they ai*e bound to support 
Turkey. If I were not standing here, I would say that if you take a feeble 
man and tell him that, instead of yielding to the strong man that is coming 
against him, you will join him in fighting him, — whether it is the case of 
a nation or an individual, — I say that he is a skulking scoundrel that runs 
away after giving that advice. But we are not going to have war now. 
Wars do not happen on the Danube in November or October. We have got 
till April at least ; and, in the mean time, all this matter will be so changed 
in position, if not totally reversed, that we can take a new choice of atti- 



^0 



APPENDIX. 155 



tude upon the Eastern question. The sooner the people of England under- 
stand the position cf Turkey, the better. It is not a question of Russian 
invasion on us. It is an invasion, no doubt, on an unoffending power. 
Russia has no quarrel with the Turkish government ; but is it on that 
ground that we are called upon to exercise vengeance upon Russia, because 
Russia encroaches upon Mahometan power in Europe ? Why, we have 
ourselves the Great Mogul, a Mahometan sovereign, who ruled over three 
times the dominion of the Sultan, divested of his authority, and shut up 
as a puppet in Delhi. We have trampled down an empire in Burmah, 
and with as little ceremony, as little reason and justice, as a ruffian would 
go into the market-place, and kick down an apple-stall. Are we, who do 
these things in the face of the world, to exercise God's vengeance on any 
other country for doing the same things ? No ! That is not a ground we 
can take up. I hope there is not hypocrisy enough extant to say that we 
are bound to go to war to prevent injustice to the Mahometans in Europe, 
when we have done far worse to Mahometans where they are more at 
home — I mean in Asia. 

But they say it is because we have treaties with the Turks that we are 
going to fight their battles. I am just throwing these things before you ; 
you will have plenty of time to consider them, as we are not going to have a 
fight on the Danube in the month of November. The opposing armies there 
will have to fight, not with one another, but with pestilence, and swamp, 
and cold, and starvation, and fever ; they will be too much occupied with 
these grim enemies to contend against each other. You are not going to fight 
for treaties ; you have no treaties to fight about. Look into any of these 
newspapers that are raising the wai'-cry, and calling for the fulfilment of our 
treaties with Turkey. They do not know but what we have a treaty which 
binds us to fight for the maintenance of Turkey ; that is, to keep the lines 
on the map the same as they now are, though I hardly know anybody who 
knows what the bounds of Turkey are. The thing is an absurdity. We 
have no such treaty with Turkey. There have been settlements from time to 
time, as that in which Turkey called on France and England to rescue her 
from the Pasha of Egypt, in 1840. Then there were certain conditions made 
defining how the Pasha of Egypt should have Egypt hereditary in his family ; 
and there are other treaties of a similar kind to which we were parties. But 
we are not bound by any treaty to defend the integrity of the Turkish 
empire. If America were to take Turkey to-morrow, — if she were to take 
possession of Asia Minor, and keep it for her debt, — we are not bound to go 
to war with America. And so in regard to other arguments we have heard. 
We are not bound in any way to be parties to anything that may happen in 
Turkey. We are not bound to interfere either externally or internally. We 
are bound not to violate the treaties we have made, by upsetting the settle- 
ment which we have been parties to ; but we are not bound to fight to pre- 
serve those territorial arrangements, if other people choose to interfere with 
them. It has been settled with regard to the greatest territorial treaty that 
ever was entered into, — the treaty of Vienna, by which the whole boundaries 
of Europe were defined, — it has been settled by the Earl of Aberdeen and the 
Duke of Wellington, by the whig party, and all who were parties to it, that, 
while we are bound not to violate that treaty, we are not bound to go to war 
to maintain the integrity of the countries whose boundaries were fixed by 
that treaty. Therefore, if you hear anybody filling up a phrase about a 
treaty, ask him to tell you where that treaty is, the date of it, and where to 
find it. And so it is in regard to the word " ally." We are bound to go to 
war to defend our ancient ally. We have had more alliances with Russia 
than with Turkey ; and we are not bound by any treaties whatever to main- 
**-^« Turkey, any more than to maintain Tuscany, or Holland, or any other 



156 APPENDIX. 

power. Divest the question of these points that touch the honor of the 
nation, and then you bring it to what it really is — to a question of self- 
interest. I am not going to enter into that subject ; I am sorry I have tres- 
passed so long upon your time ; but I am going to enter into that subject 
to-morrow at the public meeting. Let us have as large a public meeting as 
we can have, and let us have the matter discussed here, and let us throw 
down the truth before the public, and they will, I have no doubt, receive it, 
and be more disposed to take the truth from you now, than they will to take 
error from those who proved themselves so unworthy to be their guides nine 
months ago. 






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